JEFFERSON CITY, MO – Missouri voter advocates condemned a ruling Monday by a Cole County Circuit Court Judge upholding a law that unconstitutionally burdens Missouri voters by further restricting Missouri’s photo ID requirements to vote.
The case, brought by the ACLU of Missouri and Missouri Voter Protection Coalition on behalf of the organizations and several individuals impacted by the law, challenges the photo ID restrictions contained in HB 1878 (2022), which strictly limits the forms of ID Missouri voters may show to cast an in-person ballot. In 2006, the Missouri Supreme Court found a similar law violated the right to vote, and in 2020, the Missouri Supreme Court expressed skepticism that a provision like the one challenged in this case would be valid.
The Order - following more than two years of court appearances and a trial late last year - found that the organizations and the individual voters lacked standing to challenge the photo ID restrictions, and that a 2016 voter ID constitutional amendment allows the law. The state’s own data shows that more than 200,000 Missouri voters lack a current Missouri ID.
The ACLU of Missouri and the Missouri Voter Protection Coalition issued the following joint statement:
“We are disappointed with the decision and will appeal to protect Missourians’ fundamental right to vote. The evidence at trial showed the significant burdens some voters face to obtain the limited form of ID this law requires to vote, especially for low-income voters, seniors, and voters with disabilities, due to challenges obtaining and paying for underlying documents, changing inaccurate official documents, and securing transportation. Moreover, expert analysis at trial also found this law’s signature match process arbitrary and unreliable. The evidence further showed that the voter ID restrictions do not fix actual election problems or make our elections more secure. The Missouri Supreme Court will ultimately review this decision - as it has with previous iterations of this law, and hopefully conclude, again, that these restrictions improperly limit valid Missouri voters from participating in the democratic process.
Marilyn McLeod, President of League of Women Voters of Missouri, issued the following statement:
"The League believes the state should be making it easier, not harder, for Missourians to exercise their fundamental right to vote. There's no evidence of voter impersonation in Missouri, so these extreme restrictions don’t make our elections any safer or more secure. We will appeal this decision."
Nimrod Chapel, Jr., President of the Missouri State Conference of the NAACP, issued the following statement:
“The NAACP will continue to fight against discriminatory laws that add barriers for people of color, seniors, students, and others to exercise our fundamental right to cast a ballot in Missouri. While these laws aim to fix an imaginary problem, the disenfranchisement from the unnecessary and burdensome legal obstacles they create for voters is very real.”