The Missouri Supreme Court is deciding what to do about the state’s demand for voter photo IDs, as well as new rules for registering to vote and applying for absentee ballots. On Wednesday, judges heard arguments in two different cases that question various elements of a legislation about the 2022 elections.
According to NPR, one case was about the law’s requirement for photo IDs, while the other was about extra rules related to registering to vote and reaching out to absentee voters. The lawyers representing the people who are suing over the photo ID requirement asked the court to throw out a lower court’s decision that upheld the requirement.
One of the main issues in the lawsuit is whether the plaintiffs have the right to sue.
Judge Mary Russell asked plaintiff’s lawyer Jason Orr to be more clear about whether the people involved could get government-issued photo IDs and vote.
Orr, who works for the ACLU of Missouri, said that the plaintiffs did vote, but the legal issue is that it was hard for them to get the IDs they needed.
Orr stated, “This court and other courts have said that the ability to vote is not the burden that courts look at.” “It’s the violation of the right to vote that can make it hard to do so.”
Lou Capozzi, the state’s Solicitor General, said that Missouri voters set the stage for the photo ID requirement when they passed a constitutional amendment that gave lawmakers the ability to adopt such a legislation.
Capozzi added that even though groups like the NAACP believed the criterion was too hard, the amendment passed with 63% approval.
Capozzi said, “Those groups made all the same legal and policy arguments that this court has heard today, like that getting a government-issued photo ID is too hard.” “But the people didn’t agree with those reasons.”
Capozzi also said that the plaintiffs don’t have the right to pursue the action.
Capozzi said, “Even though the appellants say that a lot of people won’t be able to vote under HB1878, they couldn’t show the trial court a single person who couldn’t vote because of the law.”
Chief Justice W. Brent Powell disagreed with that notion and asked how the lower court’s decision could be upheld if the plaintiffs don’t have any standing at all.
“That’s something that the other side’s lawyer says: if there is no standing, how can we agree with the lower court’s decision that the bill is constitutional?” Powell asked.
Nimrod Chapel Jr., president of the Missouri NAACP, said after the hearing that the state is once again defending laws that make it tougher for people to vote.
Chapel remarked, “I can’t believe you would make it illegal for people to ask or suggest that other citizens vote.” “It’s confusing.” It’s shocking and surprising.
The photo ID requirement will stay in force if the Supreme Court agrees with the lower court’s decision in the first case.
On Wednesday, the justices also heard a second lawsuit on other parts of the same 2022 law that deal with getting people to register to vote and reaching out to them.
The clauses in question say that workers can’t be paid to look for voter registration applications, that registration workers must be Missouri voters over the age of 18, and that they can’t try to get people to sign up for absentee ballots.
Unlike the previous case, the state wants the Supreme Court to reverse a circuit court decision that said those restrictions were unconstitutional.
J. Michael Patton, who spoke for the state, stated that the parts in question are necessary to keep elections fair and orderly.
Patton remarked, “Elections need a lot of rules to be fair and honest, and there needs to be some kind of order in the democratic process.” “The challenged laws are very important for protecting the democratic process.”
Kristin Mulvey from the ACLU of Missouri claimed that the rules go against basic political expression.
