A Cole County judge is set to rule on two election lawsuits that challenge House Bill 1878.
Judge Jon Beetem must decide whether or not to grant Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit filed by the plaintiffs, the League of Women Voters, and the Missouri NAACP who are represented by the Missouri Voter Protection Coalition, the ACLU of Missouri, and the Campaign Legal Center.
“We've made a very strong case that these measures fairly clearly violate free speech and association rights,” said Denise Lieberman, Missouri Voter Protection Coalition director, and general counsel. “We’ve also made a very strong case that the voter restrictions need to be adjudicated promptly. We have already submitted affidavits. We've already deposed election officials. We've already retained expert witnesses.”
HB 1878 reforms voter identification and civic engagement requirements, which Lieberman argues conflict with previous Missouri Supreme Court rulings.
“What's at stake is the integrity of Missouri's elections,” Lieberman told the St. Louis Record. “House Bill 1878 is truly breathtaking in the way it undermines free, fair, and accessible elections in Missouri. It really attacks the process at all ends by criminalizing civic engagement activities of organizations that help people get registered to vote or get access to absentee ballots.”
If Beetem grants the plaintiffs' request for an injunction, voter registration and absentee voting restrictions will be stayed just in time for the November mid-term elections.
"We sought that because we believe they are unconstitutional on their face and don't require fact witnesses because the language of the law itself is significantly overbroad and criminalizes protected speech," Lieberman added. "We've sought to expedite the voter identification case because it does have some factual basis in it. We'll have to demonstrate that voters are burdened. So, yes, we have sought to have all of these provisions blocked before the November elections."
While conservatives contend that absentee ballots can be used to steal votes, Lieberman argues that there is no evidence of voter impersonation in Missouri.
“Our own Secretary of State, Jay Ashcroft touted the last, federal election, the 2020 election, as the safest and most secure election Missouri has conducted and there was four times the number of absentee ballots in that election than there were in the previous presidential election,” she said. “The Missouri Association of Local Election Authorities, likewise, praised the increase in absentee voting. It actually helped with election administration for them to be able to process those ballots over time than on election day.”
Schmitt did not immediately respond to requests for comment.