By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post
A new Missouri state election law could be challenged in court before the November General Election.
The Missouri Voter Protection Coalition has stated it is considering filing a lawsuit against the law which will require photo identification to vote in Missouri.
State Sen. Tony Luetkemeyer of Parkville says he feels the legislature is on very strong footing.
“In the past, the lawsuits have challenged accessibility to the ballot based on photo ID and people not being able to obtain them,” Luetkemeyer tells KFEQ/St. Joseph Post. “We made clear in the law that you automatically are given a free photo ID supplied for and paid by the state if you do not have a driver’s license or other valid photo identification. I think we should withstand any legal scrutiny that comes from any lawsuit.”
Luetkemeyer says he hasn’t heard any details about the coalition’s threatened lawsuit. Luetkemeyer says the Missouri Supreme Court outlined what would be acceptable when it struck down an earlier attempt to require photo ID to vote.
“We worked very closely with the Secretary of State’s office to make sure that we were in compliance with the most recent Supreme Court decision,” according to Luetkemeyer. “And so, like I said, we’ll see what the courts do, but I feel very confident that we passed a law that will be constitutional and will be upheld by the courts.”
Luetkemeyer, a Republican, rejects accusations by Democrats that the new law will keep some of the elderly and minorities from voting.
“And that is certainly not the intent of the bill and I don’t believe that that’s going to be the impact of the bill.”
Luetkemeyer adds the changes will also prevent suspect election activities.
“Making sure that we’re banning, for example, Zucker-bucks, where Mark Zuckerberg tried to pour millions of dollars into states, trying to influence the outcome of their elections,” Luetkemeyer says. “We don’t want out-of-state billionaires trying to buy our elections in Missouri. So those are measures that are designed to prevent those things from happening in the first place in our state.”
Luetkemeyer says there wasn’t any evidence of fraud in Missouri during the 2020 election, but adds the law is needed to prevent the types of irregularities that surfaced in other states.