Missouri’s Supreme Court recently ruled that the state’s requirement to notarize absentee ballots is not unconstitutional.
The court ruled against The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the League of Women Voters in their suit, which was argued by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
“I’m thankful that the court made the right decision and Missouri voters have the right to a safe and secure election,” Missouri’s Secretary of State John Ashcroft told the St. Louis Record. “Hundreds of thousands of voters have already cast a ballot through the absentee or mail-in process, and it is imperative that the voting rules in place yesterday are the same rules in place tomorrow.”
The suit argued that in light of COVID-19, the notarization requirement was an undue burden on voters concerned with contracting and transmitting the virus, and was unconstitutional.
The state contended it would not be fair to alter rules after voting had commenced.
“Literally tens of thousands of Missourians have already cast their ballots,” Solicitor General John Sauer said as reported by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “I think the principle of equal treatment does apply here.”
The Supreme Court judges found ruling in the plaintiff’s favor would set a risky precedent.
“All future voters beyond the 2020 election could claim they expect to confine themselves `due to illness’ under Appellants’ suggested interpretation of that phrase,” the judges wrote in their ruling. “This result is clearly contrary to the plain and ordinary meaning of this absentee provision.
So far, Missouri has processed requests for approximately 364,000 absentee ballots and 38,500 mail-in ballots, as reported by 570 News.
The suit made its way to the highest court in the state after Cole County Circuit Judge Jon Beetem dismissed it, the St. Louis Post-DIspatch reported.
In his ruling, Beetem found the plaintiff’s did not supply sufficient evidence of undue burden or danger to voters, the report stated. In fact, experts used for the plaintiff’s case acknowledged that social distancing and other protocols were consistently effective in thwarting the spread of the coronavirus.
“Invalidating the notarization requirement, and re-printing thousands of ballot envelopes, during a process that is already underway threatens to create confusion among voters and local election authorities, and it would subject Missouri voters to different legal standards during the same election, depending on when they cast their absentee or mail-in ballot,” the judge wrote as reported by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.