Missouri Violates Federal Voter Registration Laws by Mark Morris and Tim Hoover

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U.S. sues Missouri over voter lists

November 23, 2005 —The federal government sued the state of Missouri on Tuesday, alleging it does not maintain voter registration lists properly and has failed to purge ineligible voters from the rolls.

Pointing to Missouri counties that have more registrations than eligible voters, federal lawyers asked a U.S. magistrate in Jefferson City to order the state to devise a plan within 30 days to comply with the National Voter Registration Act.

The suit also alleges that some voters have been improperly purged from registration lists, while other residents who are ineligible to vote have remained registered for federal elections.

"With this lawsuit, the Department of Justice will ensure that all Missouri voters are able to go to the polls and cast ballots in free and fair elections," Wan J. Kim, assistant attorney general for the department's Civil Rights Division, said in a written statement.

The suit names Missouri of Secretary of State Robin Carnahan as the defendant in her capacity as the state's chief election officer. The suit, however, points to irregularities in voter registrations that existed before November 2004, when Matt Blunt, now Missouri's governor, served as secretary of state.

"It's obvious these issues occurred before I took office," said Carnahan, a Democrat. "The voter rolls should have been cleaned up prior to the last election. That wasn't done. The mess was here before we got here."

Spence Jackson, a spokesman for Blunt, said the Republican governor led efforts to reform elections while he was secretary of state. Jackson pointed to a 2003 election law that Blunt supported.

That measure included a provision creating a statewide voter registration database that is set to go online later this year. Jackson and Carnahan agreed the database would address many of the problems cited in the lawsuit.

Still, Jackson blamed Carnahan:

"The Justice Department raised these issues with Secretary Carnahan while she was secretary of state, and she failed to use the bully pulpit of her office to call attention to these so local officials could make corrections.

We hope that she will do her job and work with the Department of Justice for a settlement and spare taxpayers the financial burden of an unnecessary lawsuit."

Under Missouri law, the secretary of state is responsible for coordinating the state's responsibilities under federal election laws. State law also requires that election officials canvass voter rolls every two years to identify ineligible voters. Voters, for example, must be purged if they die, move, have certain criminal convictions or suffer some types of mental incapacities.

The management of voter registrations generally is left to county clerks. Election boards in Kansas City and St. Louis and in Jackson, Platte, Clay and St. Louis counties supervise registrations there.

The suit pointed to an unidentified county where the clerk has never performed a canvass and does not put voters on an inactive list. Another county sent letters to all voters who had not cast a ballot for four years and then struck the names of those for whom the letter was returned as "undeliverable."

The lawsuit cited an Associated Press report that ran in The Kansas City Star on October 20, 2004, that noted 37 election jurisdictions in Missouri with more registered voters than persons of voting age, according to census estimates.

In Reynolds County in southeast Missouri, voter registrations were more than 150 percent of the eligible voting-age population, the suit contended.

According to the suit, federal prosecutors twice have written state officials about their concerns. On March 17, 2005, federal authorities told the state about discrepancies they had found between voter registrations and census data. In October, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales notified Missouri that its list maintenance did not comply with federal election law.

Carnahan said she was disappointed that federal officials were pursuing litigation, saying her office already had a plan for addressing the problems and wanted to keep the matter out of court.

Her office plans to offer local election officials education and training on how to update voter rolls, she said.

However, the state ultimately does not have the power to make counties comply with federal election laws, Carnahan said.

In 2002, the federal government sued the city of St. Louis for not maintaining its voting lists properly. That action was settled.

"While that case highlighted and resolved certain...compliance issues in the City of St. Louis, it did not lead to compliance by all Missouri election authorities," the suit noted.

Reach Mark Morris at (816) 234-4310 or mmorris@kcstar.com. Reach Tim Hoover at (573) 634-3565 or thoover@kcstar.com.

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Added July 9, 2006

Last updated 6/14/09