Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Secretary of State: 230,000 Voters in MO will be Hurt by Photo ID

Affected voters and Boone County Clerk Wendy Noren held an awareness event with Secretary of State Robin Carnahan this afternoon to discuss an updated list of registered voters who don't have driver's licenses. The event was held as HJR 9 sits on the House Perfection Calendar and legislators have predicted that it will be sent out of the House this week.

Overall, there are nearly 230,000 Missouri registered voters who currently do not have government-issued identification. Breaking it down by county, we see a startling trend of which voters will be most impacted:

  • St. Louis Co.: 51,708
  • St. Louis City: 29,949
  • Kansas City: 22,741
  • Greene Co: 10,043
  • Jackson Co: 8,866
  • Boone Co: 6,055
  • St. Charles Co: 5,903
  • Clay Co: 5,580

HJR 9 is expensive to the voter. Voters without Missouri issued driver’s licenses will have to spend hours navigating bureaucracy to find certified copies of their birth certificate and court papers if their name has changed. In some cases voters will be stuck in a catch-22 where they can’t get a certified copy of their birth certificate without a valid driver’s license. Meanwhile other voters born outside Missouri or who have experienced natural disasters like floods and fires will be helpless because their documents were long destroyed.

HJR 9 is unnecessary and impacts nearly a quarter million Missouri voters who will be discouraged from even going to the polls because of the extra hoops they’ll have to jump through. The legislature should pay heed to the county by county numbers generated by the Secretary of State and drop HJR 9 from the House calendar today.

Friday, April 24, 2009

Will the State Take Up Photo ID with 3 Weeks to Go?

With 3 weeks to go, the state legislature adjourned Thursday afternoon at 2 p.m. without taking up HJR 9. The House and Senate have yet to reconcile a budget that Governor Jay Nixon could agree to AND they have $2.3 Billion in stimulus funds to place before May 8th. A reasonable person would think that their simply isn’t enough time or political will to hurt 240,000 registered Missouri voters through unnecessary and expensive election reform, but some legislators aren’t letting photo ID die quietly.

Rep. Shane Schoeller (R-139) told David Catanese yesterday in response to his story about photo ID that the bill would be brought to the House floor nearly next week. Don’t these guys have enough to keep them busy with 15 days left in session? Isn’t dealing with the economic crisis, balancing the budget, helping Missourians secure more jobs and insuring quality healthcare a long enough list of REAL problems? We encourage you to call your legislators TODAY to remind them to SOLVE real problems rather than CREATE problems for Missouri voters!

Odds are Against HJR 9: Webster Co. Clerk & League of Women Voters Speak Out

Tonight, David Catanese, political reporter for KY3 NBC news in Springfield ran a story entitled “Early Voting, Voter ID Proposal May be Too Big to Pass.” The story featured Southwest Missouri League of Women Voters President Lois Detrick who spoke about the League’s opposition to putting 240,000 registered voters at risk and Webster County Clerk Stanley Whitehurst spoke about the poorly thought out implementation and unintended costs of HJR 9. The story follows:

Early voting, voter ID proposal may be too big to pass

SPRINGFIELD -- If you want to vote early in Missouri, you'd need to bring a photo I.D.

And that's probably why both legislative ideas won't survive the waning days of the 2009 session.

A joint House resolution would allow Missourians to vote a week early in statewide races --- but require a photo I.D. to do so. It's an attempted compromise between Republicans and Democrats. But there's so much in the bill, the odds are it will fail.

Willard Rep. Shane Schoeller said the House will take up House Joint Resolution 9 next week and it will probably pass. The stumbling block will come in the Senate, where a filibuster is threatened.

And even if it does clear both chambers, it would then go to the voters to decide in 2010.

KY3 News, Springfield

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

The St. Louis Beacon’s View on Photo ID’s Movement

Photo finished? Time's running out for House resolution supporting photo voter ID

By Jo Mannies and Dale Singer, Beacon staff

Posted 11:02 a.m. Tues., April 21 - The state Capitol snapped to attention Monday when Missouri House Majority Leader Steve Tilley sent out a "tweet'' on his Twitter  online account that laid out his predictions about any legislation's chances.

Tilley tweeted that a bill must pass the House this week -- and be on its way to the Senate -- "to have a realistic chance of passage'' before this legislative session ends May 15.

That edict could affect several controversial measures.

Among them: House Joint Resolution 9 (HJR 9) , the latest effort by Republicans to require all Missouri voters to show a government-issued photo ID at the polls before they can cast a ballot.

Almost three years ago, the Missouri Supreme Court thwarted a legislative move to impose the government-issued photo ID requirement in the 2006 election. The court tossed out the mandate just weeks before Election Day.

The court said the new law violated Missouri's constitution by imposing "a heavy and substantial burden on Missourians' free exercise of the right of suffrage."

This legislative session, some Republican backers -- including Tilley -- are hoping to circumvent the court and another powerful opponent, Gov. Jay Nixon, by going directly to Missouri voters in 2010 with a proposed constitutional amendment mandating the government-issued photo IDs.

If passed by voters in 2010, the proposed government-issued photo ID requirement would then be in place for the next presidential election in 2012.

The governor doesn't get a chance to sign or veto "joint resolutions'' that propose a constitutional amendment and pass both chambers. Such measures go directly on the ballot.

Backers are banking on a floor vote this week on HJR 9, after the measure won approval last week from the House Rules Committee

Although concerned about the time crunch, Tilley observed recently that a photo ID mandate is "a pretty big issue'' for legislators like himself who support the requirement.

But in the state Senate, potential opponents like Sen. Joan Bray, D-University City, and Sen. Jeff Smith, D-St. Louis, say they will attempt to block HJR 9 -- with a filibuster, if necessary -- if the final version is, as Bray put it, "a piece of junk."

Supporters of the requirement believe that most Missouri voters -- especially those in rural areas -- share their belief that the lack of a government-issued photo ID invites fraud at the polls.

Democrats generally dispute the fraud allegations and say the GOP's real aim is to disenfranchise low-income, disabled and minority voters who are least likely to have government-issued photo IDs, and more likely to favor Democrats.

To sweeten the taste for dissenters, the proposal's sponsors have added a provision authorizing no-fault early voting, which Missouri does not have -- and which many Democrats (and a few Republicans) have long sought.

State Sen. Delbert Scott, R-Lowry City, was among the leaders of the failed 2006 effort to mandate government-issued photo identification at the polls.

He said Monday that he's had some misgivings about seeking a constitutional amendment and about tacking on the early-voting provisions.

"Having said that, if it's the only way to do it and it's a tradeoff for early vote -- I don't know if it's a good idea or not," Scott added. "I am very supportive of the photo ID and certainly am not opposed to the early voting within a certain price tag."

But the two-pronged effort by Missouri's photo-ID supporters appears to have created a new obstacle to their chances of getting the measure through this session -- the Missouri County Clerks Association.

For much of the state, especially rural Missouri, county clerks run the elections.

Missouri's county clerks are split over the photo ID requirement, said association president Stan Whitehurst, the Webster County circuit clerk. But when it comes to HJR 9's early voting mandate, most of the association members are against it.

"As it's currently framed, we don't think the legislation is the right approach,'' Whitehurst said.

By coincidence, the association's membership is gathered in Jefferson City this week for a conference. While in town, Whitehurst added, "We plan to be visiting with our legislators'' to register the concerns about the proposal.

Many association members object to HJR 9's specific language regarding office hours and administrative procedures for early voting, he explained. But what really got the group worked up is the measure's lack of state money to help cover the added election costs that county clerks believe will accompany early voting.

Legislators "don't feel the (financial) pain," Whitehurst said. "If they had some skin in the game, they'd be concerned about the costs of these specific proposals."

The association's concerns could well harm HJR 9's chances, by providing unexpected assistance to various groups who have long been opponents of any Missouri law requiring government-issued photo IDs at the polls.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, more than 30 states already allow early voting. Only seven require photo identification.

BATTLE LINES OVER PHOTO IDS AT THE POLLS

The arguments over requiring government-issued photo IDs at the polls have changed little in three years.

Based on state statistics, Secretary of State Robin Carnahan's office believes that up to 240,000 of Missouri's registered voters lack a driver's license -- the chief form of government-issued photo ID that would be allowed under HJR 9. Others put that figure in the range of 160,000 people.

(Those figures were compiled by comparing the number of Missourians with drivers licenses with those on voter rolls. Critics say duplicate voter registrations inaccurately fatten the comparison, and also back up their case that better identification is needed to guard against people voting more than once.)

HJR 9 also would allow a U.S. passport, a military-issued ID or a state-issued photo identification card for non-drivers as an acceptable government-issued ID.

Carnahan's official report of the November 2008 election, which came out last month, declared that there was no evidence of any voter fraud -- but plenty of incidences where legitimately registered people got turned away. In some cases, she wrote, they were improperly told they needed photo IDs.

Carnahan's predecessor, Republican Matt Blunt, asserted in his report after the 2000 election that as many of 1,233 people were illegally allowed to obtain court orders to vote after they couldn't provide evidence that they were registered. Later, the U.S. Justice Department asserted in a lawsuit that an undetermined number of legitimate voters in the city of St. Louis were inappropriately barred from voting in November 2000 because of faulty voter rolls.

In any case, St. Louis lawyer Denise Lieberman, who is the Missouri voter protection coordinator for a nationwide group known as the Advancement Project, says the real issue centers on the real people who are now legitimate voters but could lose their rights if Missouri institutes a constitutional amendment requiring government-issued photo IDs.

"We're not talking about people who would be otherwise ineligible to vote," she said. "We are talking about disenfranchising eligible voters, people who have a right to cast a ballot and have a say in their government, who have been arbitrarily removed from the political process solely because they could not get a copy of an original birth certificate, say, or a student in Missouri with a driver's license from another state or a person with a disability whose signature changes every time."

By a 6-1 vote, the Missouri Supreme Court embraced similar arguments. For example, the court noted that people seeking a driver's license or non-driver photo ID must produce a birth certificate, which can cost $15 to acquire. Such a payment violates the constitutional right to free elections, the court said.

One person who knows firsthand of the frustrations that the photo ID provision can bring is Kathleen Weinschenk of Columbia, Mo., who was instrumental in bringing the suit that overturned the 2006 photo ID law.

Weinschenk, who uses a wheelchair because of cerebral palsy, is unable to write her name and must make a mark while signing documents. Because of her disability, the mark is not the same from one time to the next, so it is difficult to use it as identification.

She said tying the photo ID issue to provisions for early voting undercuts the right she has worked so hard to secure.

"If you have early voting, but not everyone can vote, it still doesn't help anything," she said. "If you have only a selected few people who can vote, you're not a democracy, are you?"

Meanwhile, state Sen. Scott said that requiring government-issued photo identification would provide Missourians with a "great deal of comfort" about the legitimacy of the state's election process.

If Republican legislative leaders are committed, there is time to get the measure through both chambers by May 15, he said.

However, Scott also took note of the potential obstacles facing HJR 9 as well: "I don't know whether it's got legs or not."

Freelance writer Jason Rosenbaum contributed information for this report.

Contact Beacon political reporter Jo Mannies or Beacon staff writer Dale Singer.

http://www.stlbeacon.org/missouri_issues/photo_finished_time_s_running_out_for_house_resolution_supporting_photo_voter_id_

Will State House Stand by Real ID Vote?

The MO House of Representatives engaged in a colorful debate on HB 361 centering around the federal Real ID act which requires each state to move toward federalized driver’s licenses and databases.  The very same legislators who have time and again voted in favor of requiring photo IDs to vote opposed Real ID because of the bureaucratic headache and cost of acquiring it.

Following this logic, one would believe that the same state representatives who oppose real ID would also oppose photo ID requirements to vote because both require jumping through bureaucratic hoops, paying fees for supporting documentation and long waits for such documents.  Even the bill’s champion, Jim Guest, and Rep. Ryan Silvey confused one another as they discussed the process of acquiring a bona fied, government-issued photo ID.  Click here to listen to their circular floor discussion

Ultimately, the House voted to oppose Real ID because of the burden that would be imposed on Missourians to get federal certified ID to enter federal buildings and travel by airplane.  The House of Representatives voted against such requirements in an 83-69 vote.  Let’s hope that the same legislators will respond in the same way to unnecessary and burdensome photo ID requirements. 

Thursday, April 16, 2009

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Letter to the Editor Published TODAY!

We are very proud of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch enough for taking a stand AGAINST Photo ID and the state legislature’s attempt to tack a feeble early voting reform onto it.  Read our letter to the PD below which we sent in response to their Editorial entitled Partisans who mess with voters’ rights are playing with fire

Tying voter ID to early voting is an underhanded move to suppress voters

Thursday, Apr. 16 2009

Tying voter ID to early voting is an underhanded move to suppress voters
We applaud the paper's efforts to speak out against HJR 9, the snowballing
photo identification constitutional amendment being pushed through the state
legislature this year.

As the editorial "Early voting gets a poison pill" (April 10) shrewdly pointed
out, this law is unnecessary, expensive and a clear impediment to making sure
that every eligible voter is able to vote. We were extremely disappointed that
the Elections Committee refused to hold a public hearing on the bill after 10
pages of changes were added, thereby changing its intent and impact
dramatically. It is important that concerned voters, advocates and affected
organizations share their views on such proposals before they are passed.


Tying voter deterrence legislation like photo identification to a good
government measure like early voting is illogical and underhanded. To make
matters even worse, HJR 9 is a constitutional amendment that was poorly written
and overrides pages of pre-existing absentee voting statutes that protect
disabled and military voters. If HJR 9 passed in its current form, it
potentially could disenfranchise up to 200,000 voters, and the secretary of
state estimates that 10,000 overseas military voters and 15,000 disabled voters
would be hurt as well.

We call HJR 9 for what it is: A merciless and unnecessary reform that uses an
inadequate early voting reform as a disguise to hurt the most vulnerable voters
in this state.


Denise Lieberman – St. Louis
Bob Quinn – Jefferson City
Spokespersons for the Missourians for Fair Elections Coalition

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Rules Committee Sends Photo ID to Floor Despite Acknowledgment of Bill’s Flaws

The Rules Committee met last night to consider several bills including HCS HJR 9, the photo ID law. It comes as no surprise that Photo ID moved so quickly to the top of the Rules’ Committee list as the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Stanley Cox is the Vice-Chairman of the Committee. Despite a motion made by Rep. Stephen Webber to send the photo ID bill back to the Elections Committee for further review and public input, the committee chose to vote this dangerous and snowballing bill out of the committee. Rep. Webber and Rep. Mike Talboy each spoke to the issue and pointed out that other pieces of legislation have been sent back to their committees of origin for further review and photo ID should be no different. Chairman Michael Parson even agreed that there were “issues” with the bill but he had been reassured by Rep. Cox that some of the bill’s provisions would be corrected once it goes to the House the floor.

It is unacceptable that our legislators are willing to pass this legislation out of committee KNOWING IT IS INHERENTLY FLAWED and would most certainly disenfranchise tens of thousands of disabled and overseas military voters. CALL YOUR LEGISLATORS TODAY AND LET THEM KNOW HOW DISAPPOINTED you are in their FLAWED PROCESS!

Monday, April 13, 2009

Rep. Cynthia Davis: Totally off the Mark

The Turner Report captured a column written over the weekend by Rep. Cynthia Davis (R-O’Fallon) in response to the many calls she has received in opposition to a photo ID requirement in Missouri. Not only was her column based in rumors, stereotypes and misgivings but it also completely missed the mark. In her assertions, Davis claimed:image

None of us should want to see our elections subverted by van loads of people rounded up and herded into our polling places to vote illegally.

First of all, the Department of Justice and Secretaries of State past and present have pointed out there are no recorded instances of in-person voter impersonation in Missouri. This is a law that Davis believes will deter illegal voters from going to polls but the intended effect is that a photo ID law will discourage eligible, registered Missouri voters.

Later in the column Davis continues exclaimed that:

Some of my constituents stated that these callers have told them that the state was taking away the right to vote from seniors and low-income individuals. This proposal does not take away anyone’s right to vote.

We are happy that Davis is taking calls from her constituents but we fear she isn’t listening. Davis continues to deny that this proposal would make it INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT for voters to actually cast ballots. Photo ID would take the fundamental act of voting and turn it into a bureaucratic nightmare full of expensive and time consuming obstacles for voters without a valid driver’s licenses, military IDs or passports. These persons include disabled, minority and urban area voters. Just the types of voters that Rep. Davis isn’t concerned about or interested in protecting. Shame on you Cynthia for not really listening to Missouri Voters and passing HCS HJR 9 out of committee!

Friday, April 10, 2009

Powerful Excerpts from Yesterday’s Post-Dispatch Story

So here’s a system that worked and could be improved only by allowing Missourians to vote early, as voters in 32 other states can do. Naturally, Republican lawmakers in the Missouri House of Representatives have decided to mess up a good idea with a bad one. . .

That’s not all. To gain even this second-class system, Missouri voters would have to swallow an amendment to HJR 9 requiring mandatory photo identification at polling places. House Republicans cynically cobbled together the two concepts into one proposal — all without a public hearing. . .

As much as we favor early voting, we can’t swallow the poison pill that is the voter ID requirement. The House should reject the committee bill. Failing that, the Senate should reject it. . .

Citizens are way ahead of politicians when it comes to voting rights. They’ve lived through Bush v. Gore, long lines at polling place, scare tactics and dirty tricks on Election Day. They have had enough. They have every reason to resent this cynical partisanship. Partisans who mess with voters’ rights are playing with fire — and deserve to get burned. . .

Excerpts taken from the April 9th St. Louis Post-Dispatch Editorial entitled: Partisans who mess with voters’ rights are playing with fire. For Full Story Click Here.

Post-Dispatch Bashes HJR 9 – Equates Photo ID to Poison

Partisans who mess with voters’ rights are playing with fire

April 9, 2009

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Editorial Board

Missouri Secretary of State Robin Carnahan published a detailed report last week saying that Missouri voters generally fared well at the polls last November.

That was no accident. Despite huge turnouts, troubles were few at state polling places, the result of good preparation by election officials, voting rights advocates, voters themselves and more than 24,000 volunteers — real patriots at work.

So here’s a system that worked and could be improved only by allowing Missourians to vote early, as voters in 32 other states can do. Naturally, Republican lawmakers in the Missouri House of Representatives have decided to mess up a good idea with a bad one.

On a pure party-line vote Tuesday, the House Elections Committee approved a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow early voting, but only at the cost of disenfranchising many voters and locking Missouri into one of the least progressive voting systems in the nation.

Missouri voters would benefit immensely from an early voting system. But state lawmakers have shown little interest in their constituents’ convenience. They do a lot of talking about it, but they consistently have failed to take action.

Now House Republicans are holding early voting hostage. They are proposing a constitutional amendment that provides early voting, but through the stingiest program imaginable.

Under their plan, embodied in House Joint Resolution 9, early voting would be available just for one week and for limited hours. Other states allow early voting to last at least two weeks and accommodate working people with extended hours.

HJR 9 would let counties open one early voting center. Those that wanted more than one would would receive no state support.

That’s not all. To gain even this second-class system, Missouri voters would have to swallow an amendment to HJR 9 requiring mandatory photo identification at polling places. House Republicans cynically cobbled together the two concepts into one proposal — all without a public hearing.

The photo ID
requirement is a vestige of GOP political guru Karl Rove’s voter suppression efforts during President George W. Bush’s administration. A voter ID requirement passed in Missouri in 2006, but was thrown out by the Missouri Supreme Court. Subsequently, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld — wrongly, in our view — a similar law in Indiana.

Photo ID is billed as a way to stem fraud, but that’s a phony argument. There wasn’t a single complaint of voter impersonation in Missouri in the last election cycle.

The effect would be to disenfranchise some of the more than 200,000 Missourians who lack photo IDs, many of them elderly or poor — people who tend to vote Democratic.

And it would penalize voters who need special assistance. Permanently disabled voters, for example, now can be granted permanent absentee voter status. HJR 9 provides no such allowance.

Constitutions should be amended infrequently and with care. This amendment was proposed simply to circumvent a gubernatorial veto.

As much as we favor early voting, we can’t swallow the poison pill that is the voter ID requirement. The House should reject the committee bill. Failing that, the Senate should reject it.

Citizens are way ahead of politicians when it comes to voting rights. They’ve lived through Bush v. Gore, long lines at polling place, scare tactics and dirty tricks on Election Day. They have had enough. They have every reason to resent this cynical partisanship. Partisans who mess with voters’ rights are playing with fire — and deserve to get burned.

http://www.stltoday.com/blogzone/the-platform/published-editorials/2009/04/partisans-who-mess-with-voters-rights-are-playing-with-fire/

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Photo ID Voted out of Elections Committee

Committee Scrambles to Pass Photo ID Legislation to Avoid Public Objection

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Tuesday April 7, 2009

Contact: Bob Quinn 573-690-2440 or Denise Lieberman 314-780-1833

Jefferson City, MO – Three years after the Missouri Supreme Court struck down a government-issued photo ID requirement to vote as unconstitutional, the Missouri House Elections Committee, chaired by Representative Bill Deeken (R-114), passed out a surprise version of the unnecessary and costly bill earlier this morning by a vote of 7 to 5.

In a swift move meant to circumvent public comment on the proposal, Rep. Cox replaced his single page photo ID bill, HJR 9, with an 11 page committee substitute version of the bill as it came up for a vote. Cox’ new proposal not only calls for costly and overly-restrictive photo ID and lengthy constitutional provisions for implementing photo ID but also included unfamiliar advance voting requirements. Neither of the revised provisions were heard in a public forum by the committee so that concerned voters, advocates and affected organizations could share their views on the drastically overhauled measure.

This move also came after thousands of Missourians called their legislators to speak out against photo ID this session.

“It is disturbing that the majority of this committee has made it their legislative priority to push forth restrictive measures that make it harder for people to vote, instead of working to solve the real challenges that Missouri families currently face,” said Bob Quinn, a spokesman for the Missourians for Fair elections coalition. Over the past several years, tens of thousands of Missourians have already lost their jobs and their healthcare; with passage of this measure, they could lose their constitutional right to vote too.”

Even in the midst of a national economic crisis, hundreds of thousands of Missourians without healthcare and unemployment rates at a 25 year high, the Missouri legislature continues to push this unnecessary and burdensome election reform. Past fiscal notes for the cost of government-issued photo ID legislation had a price tag to the state of nearly $6 million. Missourians like Lillie Lewis who do not already have a government-issued photo ID, will have to spend money and hours of their time searching for underlying documents like missing birth certificates.

HJR 9, proposed by Stanley Cox (R-118), would require every eligible Missouri voter to provide government-issued photo ID in order to vote. Research showed last year that this requirement could disenfranchise up to 240,000 eligible citizens, including 90,000 rural residents and 50,000 elderly Missourians. Over 5,000 Missourians from across the state have called their legislators on the elections committee in opposition to the bill already.

The original version of HJR 9 was heard in the House Elections Committee on February 17th and 24th. However, Cox proposed a drastically amended version of the bill before holding the vote on it this morning which was not allowed to be commented on by the public. Ranking member Rep. Michael Frame (D-105) along with 4 other members of the House Elections Committee sent a letter requesting Chairman Deeken hear the new version of the bill so that the public could discuss their concerns about the bill. Chairman Deeken denied additional hearings on the radically revised bill and it soon passed out of committee.

Fighting for the thousands of Missourians who would be disenfranchised by this proposal and realizing the unnecessary cost to Missouri voters, the Missourians for Fair Elections coalition will again make sure the stories of Missourians who would lose their right to vote are heard. The coalition continues to encourage calls to legislators asking them NOT to spend resources and time on photo ID legislation.

To learn more about this issue and how it would impact Missourians, visit www.MoFairElections.org

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Deeken & Cox May Force Photo ID Through This Week!

The House Elections Committee will meet again Tuesday April 7th 2009 at 8AM in Hearing Room 5. It is almost certain that Chairman Deeken will call HJR 9 (Photo ID) up for a vote because there are no other elections bills slated for a hearing. Despite cries from Rep. Frame and other committee members, It is also suspected that Rep. Cox will attempt to sneak the committee substitute version of photo ID past the committee thereby undermining the public hearing process for the reform.

Thank you again to the thousands that have called legislators and elections committee members. Regardless of the outcome of tomorrow’s hearing, we’ll continue to put pressure on the state legislature to do the right thing and VOTE NO ON PHOTO ID.