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St. Francois County Clerk Kevin Engler visits with Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft at Election Central in 2019. The Missouri Legislature passed a bill that went into effect in late August that changed several aspects of voting.
Missouri recently passed a new law that has modified voting registration and voting requirements that went into effect in late August.
St. Francois County Clerk Kevin Engler oversees the voting system in the county and spoke about the changes put in place. Engler said the law could change back due to a possible Supreme Court ruling, but he doesn’t know of any court action coming up.
“One of the biggest changes is that you are going to need a picture identification to vote,” he said. “Even county voter IDs cannot be used as they do not have a voter photo on it. You cannot use student IDs or out-of-state driver’s licenses.”
ID that are allowed for voting purposes:
Nonexpired Missouri driver’s license
Nonexpired or nonexpiring Missouri nondriver’s license
Military ID with a photo that is not expired or has no expiration date
U.S. or Missouri-issued document with voter’s name, photo and expiration date that isn’t expired.
According to Engler, 90% of voters now use driver’s licenses for identification. “The barcode on the back has all the same information as the voter ID card does.”
Eligible voters who need a picture identification can go to a Missouri license office and obtain a state ID for free if used for voting purposes.
Voter Registration and address changes
For registering to vote, there is still no same day registration. Voters who have moved within a county can change their address on Election Day. If the address change is within St. Francois County, the voter can vote at the precinct as every election machine has all of the county voters listed. However if a voter is already registered to vote anyplace else in Missouri, they can change their address and vote on election day but only at Election Central because of the need to access the state’s information on the internet.
Other items of interest about voter registration is that the month and date of the voter’s birthday is no longer public and people cannot be compensated to register voters.
In person absentee voting will still require a photo identification. No-excuse absentee voting begins on the second Tuesday before the election.
Election authorities need to hand mark or stamp each absentee ballot envelope as it is received with the date and time.
If there are 10 or more absentees at a given location such as a nursing home, elections teams must go to the facility and have residents vote in person. Engler has a system set up to handle those situations.
“We are going to do it differently, we did a practice run in August, it went smooth,” he said. “We are going to be proactive and approach the facility and have them declare a ‘Voting Day’ either on a Wednesday or Thursday of the week prior of Election Day.
"Send us a list of potential voters. We will check our rolls and see which ones are registered voters. We will prepare their ballot requests and come that day and have them sign the ballot requests and hand them their ballots and have them vote and seal it, sign it on the back and put it in the metal box. We will have a full team of Democrats and Republicans.”
There is a ban on ballot drop boxes.
Entities that conduct elections cannot receive or use private funds to conduct an election. The exception is in-kind contributions such as personal protective equipment, water, free usage of polling locations and food for staff, election judges, watchers and challengers.
Mark Marberry is a reporter for the Farmington Press and Daily Journal. He can be reached at 573-518-3629, or at mmarberry@farmingtonpressonline.com
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St. Francois County Clerk Kevin Engler visits with Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft at Election Central in 2019. The Missouri Legislature passed a bill that went into effect in late August that changed several aspects of voting.
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