Missouri senate passes bill requiring voters to show photo ID

by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent

(Worthy News) – Missouri’s Republican-led state Senate has passed a bill that would require voters to show photo identification at polling stations, the Associated Press reports. Democrats added two weeks of no-excuse absentee ballot voting to the GOP Bill.

The Republican-led House will now review any changes made by the Senate; the deadline for the legislation to pass is Friday, AP said.

Passed by 23-11 votes, the bill would permit voters without the requisite ID to cast provisional ballots which will not be counted unless the person returns to the polling station the same day with photo identification, or election officials verify their signature. Valid IDs include driver’s licenses, nondriver’s licenses, and other government-issued photo IDs, AP said.

The bill was drafted in response to a 2020 Missouri Supreme Court ruling which permanently blocked a 2016 law that required voters without a photo ID to make a sworn statement in order to cast a regular, non-provisional ballot, AP said.

The new bill is similar to the 2016 legislation but does not require a sworn statement to be made in the absence of a photo ID.

Democrats and voting rights groups have criticized the bill, saying it will suppress voting for minorities, the elderly, the disabled, and other groups who have more difficulty in obtaining photo identification.

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