Shane Schoeller, a candidate for secretary of state, obviously believes that Missouri has a voter fraud problem.
Why else would the Missouri House speaker pro tem announce on Thursday that he plans to introduce legislation in January that would require photo identification for voters?
It’s a requirement that we believe would go a long way to further disenfranchise voters.
Voter ID has been a contentious subject in Missouri. The state Supreme Court struck down a photo ID law in 2006, ruling that it infringed on the fundamental right to vote granted by the Missouri Constitution.
During the last session, the Legislature approved a proposed constitutional amendment to allow for a photo ID mandate. It also set up guidelines for early voting. We encouraged the early voting, but editorialized against the photo identification.
Gov. Jay Nixon vetoed similar legislation that would have implemented the provisions. The constitutional amendment faces a legal challenge.
Schoeller, on Thursday, spoke as an advocate for voter protection. He has some other ideas he plans to introduce in the Legislature that make sense. One would make it harder for lawmakers to change voter-passed laws. He plans to introduce a proposal that would require a greater majority of the Legislature to make alterations to voter-passed laws. This comes as a response to a voter-passed amendment setting up regulations of dog breeders.
If Missouri legislators can show us instances of voter fraud in our own state, then we would gladly review our position. Until then, we don’t think photo ID should be implemented.
Opinion
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Discussion
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