Photo ID Lawsuit Filed in Missouri

by Jon Greenbaum

The Lawyers' Committee, the ACLU, and People For the American Way filed a lawsuit in federal court today challenging Missouri's new law requiring voters to present photo ID at the polls.  Missouri is one of several states to recently impose disenfranchising photo ID requirements for voting.  Similar lawsuits are also underway in Georgia and Missouri.  The suits claim that the laws violate the Constitution and federal voting laws.

One of the plaintiffs, Maria Frencher of Kansas City, does not have a photo ID, and also lacks the information required in order to procure an ID. Despite having been a registered voter for 13 years, and regularly casting legal ballots in Missouri, Maria will be denied the right to vote a standard ballot in the upcoming election if the Missouri statute stands.

Maria is just one of an estimated 240,000 registered Missouri voters who lack the proper photo identification now required to vote, according to calculations recently released by Missouri's Secretary of State. Many of these individuals would face difficult and - in cases like Maria's - insurmountable obstacles in requiring the ID needed to vote.

Plaintiffs in the lawsuit include the NAACP, Grass Roots Organizing, the Missouri Citizen Education Fund, The Whole Person, Disabled Citizens Alliance for Independence, and Southwest Center for Independent Living, and individual plaintiffs, including Ms. Frencher, who will find themselves disenfranchised by the voter ID law.

Read the complaint here.

Columbia Daily Tribune, Federal lawsuit seeks to thwart voter ID statute