Election law changes nearing passage in Missouri Senate - Columbia Missourian
JEFFERSON CITY — Sweeping changes to election laws are nearing final approval in the Missouri Senate after about eight hours of debate and amendments.
The Senate version of HB 1878 would ban private donations to elections authorities, create a photo identification requirement and give the secretary of state audit powers.
During Tuesday’s debate, Democrats added one item to the Republican-backed bill. Senate Minority Leader John Rizzo, D-Independence, passed an amendment allowing two weeks of early voting. The early voting could only be done in person, but voters no longer would need to state a reason.
“In today’s world, in the modern world where people are busy, there is a variety of things going on in a single mom’s life,” Rizzo said, “Democrats and Republicans alike can obviously use the ability to vote at their convenience instead of having to do it just on election day or come up with some phony excuse to do it.”
Once the bill passes the Senate’s fiscal oversight committee, it will be sent back to the Senate. Currently, the bill is undergoing a fiscal analysis by staff in the legislature.
With nationwide calls for elections changes at an all-time high, HB 1878 has become the legislature’s best chance at passing its own overhaul this session. Republican-controlled states such as Georgia, Florida and Texas passed more restrictive voting laws in 2021, but Missouri’s efforts last year never crossed the finish line.
“I don’t think anyone in this room thinks we should have bad elections,” said the bill handler, Sen. Sandy Crawford, R-Buffalo, “and I think we have put some guardrails in this bill that will ensure that or help ensure that.”
HB 1878, sponsored by Rep. John Simmons, R-Krakow, passed the House as a photo identification measure. After its run through the Senate, the bill turned into 80 pages of elections changes. The current Senate version is similar to an omnibus bill that recently passed the House.
Under the legislation, acceptable forms of photo identification would be unexpired Missouri driver’s licenses and other government-issued IDs. Opponents say photo identification creates a voting barrier for minorities, the elderly and students.
The measure to prevent private donations from elections authorities comes from Republican concerns over so-called “Zuckerbucks.” The term has been used to describe grants from an organization funded largely by Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook. In 2020, Missouri election authorities received millions of dollars from the Zuckerberg-funded group.
The organization, Center for Tech and Civic life, designated the funds for COVID-19 related expenses such as personal protective equipment during a time when election budgets were tight. Some funds were used for other purposes, such as polling technology and mail-in ballots.
Election officials around the country said the extra funding had no outside influence on the elections, according to PolitiFact, a fact-checking organization.
Provisions that allow voters to cast absentee ballots without an excuse have been supported by the Missouri Association of County Clerks and Election Authorities throughout the session.
During the Senate debate, Sen. Bob Onder, R-Lake St. Louis, strongly objected to the amendment. Early voting also has faced strong opposition in the House, where a committee struck it from an elections bill.
“Look, the gold-standard for election integrity is voting in person on election day,” Onder said, “and getting away from that is a problem.”
The bill includes numerous other provisions. If the bill passes, individuals or organizations would no longer be allowed to send out absentee ballot applications.
Another provision would allow the secretary of state to audit voter registration lists, and any issues would permit the state to withhold certain funding.
Other than the early-voting provision, the Senate bill largely mirrors the earlier House-passed elections package, HB 2140.
Any House objections to the Senate bill would send the bill to a joint committee to create a final version. There is just more than a week left in the session to pass the elections measure. The session ends May 13.
source: https://www.columbiamissourian.com/news/election-law-changes-nearing-passage-in-missouri-senate/article_3ae36152-cbe7-11ec-ac1c-0b74e54969a3.html
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