Jefferson City, Mo. - Over the past four days, Cole County Circuit Court Judge Jon Beetem has heard arguments in the challenge to Missouri’s extreme voter identification restrictions brought by the ACLU of Missouri and the Missouri Voter Protection Coalition. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the Missouri Chapter of the NAACP, the League of Women Voters of Missouri, and three impacted voters.
Both sides have agreed to use the court’s reserve date to finish the trial. The court will hear from the state’s remaining witness and closing arguments from both sides on December 7, 2023.
The ACLU of Missouri and the Missouri Voter Protection Coalition issued following joint statement:
“Plaintiffs Powell, O’Connor, and Morgan all experienced severe and real burdens because of Missouri’s extreme voter identification restrictions. Their experiences represent those of thousands of Missourians impacted by the unconstitutional burdens created by House Bill 1878 for no reason other than the myth of voter fraud. Over the past twenty years, Missouri has had zero recorded instances of voter fraud that would be stopped by these provisions.
“The state provides registered voters the illusion of democracy through the use of a provisional ballot. Under the law, each provisional ballot will be subject to an unreliable and standardless signature-matching process to count.
“Voter ID restrictions create a heavy burden on registered voters that will lead to the disenfranchisement of potentially hundreds of thousands of Missourians. Through testimony, we learned that over 137,000 valid Missouri registered voters do not have any Missouri ID on file with the Missouri Department of Revenue and, another 140,000 have an expired form of ID that would not be eligible to allow them to vote.
“The Voter ID Restrictions are unconstitutional, and any further enforcement of the law must be enjoined.”