JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A judge hearing a challenge to Missouri’s voter photo identification law raised concerns Monday that people lacking photo IDs are being asked to sign an inaccurate sworn statement, but he expressed reluctance to strike down the full law.
Senior Cole County Judge Richard Callahan said he expects to rule next week on a lawsuit claiming that the photo ID law enacted in 2016 violates the state constitution.
The decision will have implications for people wishing to vote in Nov. 6 elections, in which Democratic U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill faces a challenge from Republican state Attorney General Josh Hawley.
Voter photo ID requirements have been contentious in numerous states, and the Arkansas Supreme Court also is weighing whether to strike down its state law before the general election.
Photo ID requirements are backed most commonly by Republicans who tout them as a means of preventing fraud and opposed most frequently by Democrats who contend they can disenfranchise poor, elderly, disabled and minority voters who are less likely to have photo IDs.
Missouri’s law was enacted when the Republican-led Legislature overrode the veto of then-Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat. Voters in 2016 also approved a constitutional amendment intended to permit photo identification laws — a response to a 2006 state Supreme Court ruling that found a prior photo ID law unconstitutional.
The new law says voters shall establish their identity with a valid government-issued photo identification. But people can still cast regular ballots if they show one of several non-photo forms of identification and sign sworn statements saying they don’t have a photo ID, understand they can get one for free from the state and acknowledge that a photo ID is required to vote.
People also can cast provisional ballots, which will be counted if their signatures match those on file or they return later to show a photo ID.
Callahan said the sworn statement appears to be “inaccurate” because it states people must have a photo ID to vote even though there are ways to do so without one.
The judge said the statement could cause confusion for his elderly mother, whose driver’s license has expired and who now lives in a St. Louis County facility while potentially still listing her voting residence as the home she owns in St. Louis city.
“I think my mother would have a problem looking at that and signing it without fear that she was stating something that was not true,” Callahan told attorneys defending the law.