The Missouri 2018 ballot is a monster. So much to vote on, so little time: Candidates, the dreaded judges’ retentions, plus amendments to the Missouri constitution, a slew of ballot initiatives, and—in St. Louis County—several obscure amendments to the charter. We could all use some guidance, and maybe a little coaching, too. Here are links to some articles from Occasional Planet, addressing frequently asked questions about the Missouri 2018 ballot. Not comprehensive, but, we hope, useful.

THE PROPOSITIONS

Missouri Amendment 1: Cleaning up Missouri politics
October 31, 2018. By Gloria Shur Bilchik
Sponsors of Missouri Amendment 1—aptly nicknamed Clean Missouri—aims to increase fairness, integrity and transparency in Missouri politics. With the length and complexity of the 2018 midterm ballot, it’s fortunate that this good-government proposal is first on the ballot, because many voters may fall victim to ballot fatigue long before they get to some of the other issues. Read more.

Gas tax [Proposition D] on MO ballot: I voted yes before I knew what I was doing
October 30, 2018. By Gloria Shur Bilchik
Proposition D on Missouri’s 2018 midterm ballot asks voters whether to increase the tax on a gallon of gas. Should you vote for it? Good question. If passed, Proposition D would raise the gas tax by a total of 10 cents, over four years. I generally support tax increases, because it’s clear from the necessity of continuous cutbacks in services, Missouri government is not adequately funded. And then I read an op-ed by former Missouri legislator Joan Bray. Read more.

What are these St. Louis County charter amendments about, anyway?
October 24, 2018. By Gloria Shur Bilchik
On their 2018 ballots, many voters in St. Louis County may be surprised to encounter a quartet of proposed County charter amendments. Reading them over for the first time, they can seem obscure, and, as a result, voters may opt to skip over them. But don’t. While they may seem obtuse and “inside baseball,” the four proposals are actually worth consideration. And, incredibly, they are bi-partisan, supported by Republican and Democratic council members.
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Bingo amendment on the Missouri midterm ballot
October 22, 2018. By Gloria Shur Bilchik
On November 6, 2018, nestled on the ballot between three other amendments to the Missouri Constitution, four statewide propositions and a bunch of local ballot issues, Missouri voters will find a constitutional amendment proposal about Bingo. It’s not a huge issue–a lot of us thought Bingo was settled in the 1980s–but there it is, and rather than be surprised in the polling place, you might as well know about it.
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3 medical marijuana proposals on MO ballot: Compare and contrast
October 14, 2018. By Gloria Shur Bilchik
If you’re voting in Missouri on Nov. 6, 2018—and you are, aren’t you?—you’re going to find: not one, not two, but three proposals pertaining to legalizing medical marijuana. If you haven’t thought about them before you get to your polling place, you’re probably going to find them confusing. Each one has a different focus and a different tax rate attached. And you’ll have the opportunity to vote on all three of them.
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THE VOTING PROCESS

Back-stage tour of election headquarters: numbers tell the story
October 28, 2018. By Gloria Shur Bilchik
A tour of St. Louis County’s election headquarters reveals lots of interesting facts. Read more.

MO voter ID update: No need for affidavits
October 22, 2018. By Gloria Shur Bilchik
The continuing, confusing saga of voter ID requirements in Missouri continues. On Friday, October 19, at 5 pm, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that voters who do not show a photo ID–but who do show a “secondary” form of non-photo ID, should be allowed to vote a regular ballot, without having to sign an affidavit. Bottom line: You can vote without photo ID in Missouri’s November 6 midterm election. Unfortunately, this news comes too late for hundreds of people who have already been trained by county election boards to be pollworkers.
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How do I get a sample ballot in Missouri?
October 21, 2018. By Gloria Shur Bilchik
Need a sample ballot? Many Missouri voters are worrying about the 2018 midterm ballot. We’ve been warned: It’s unusually long. It includes a slew of Constitutional amendments, propositions, County charter amendments, retention questions for state judges most of us have never heard of, and, of course, candidates for offices ranging from US Senator to local tax assessor.
Read more

Confuse the Vote: Missouri’s cockamamie Voter ID Mess
October 17, 2018. By Gloria Shur Bilchik
Rock the Vote? Dance the Vote? How about Confuse the Vote? That’s the situation surrounding Voter ID in Missouri just three weeks before the November 2018 midterm election.
Read more

Confusing the vote: 2018 midterms edition
September 4, 2018. By Gloria Shur Bilchik
With a few heartening exceptions, the trend in voting rights in America is toward suppression and trickery—with just weeks to go before the crucial 2018 midterm elections. Voting rights in the Trump era is a one-step-forward-two-steps back story. And just when you think you’ve caught up on the news, another state, another county, or another White House authoritarian surprises you with a new wrinkle.
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THE CANDIDATES

MO GOP PAC goes low with scary words and images
October 30, 2018. By Bill Kesler
The Missouri House Republican Campaign Committee (HRCC) seems to have a thing for scary words like socialism, state-controlled healthcare, atheists, liberal professors, progressive and, gasp, Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton. Read more.

Ann Wagner has support of Sex Trafficking Advocate?
October 26, 2018. By Arthur Lieber
Well, we all make mistakes, but this is a whopper. Congresswoman Ann Wagner (MO-02) thinks that she has made name for herself opposing sex-trafficking. A recent Wagner TV spot seems to indicate an opposite tack. Read more.

Trying to cut through the B.S. in Missouri’s U.S. Senate Race
October 12, 2018. By Arthur Lieber
They’re angry with one another – Claire McCaskill and Josh Hawley, running in the tightly contested U.S. Senate race in Missouri. McCaskill is doggedly pursuing re-election and shows remarkable energy for someone who is 65. Hawley is trying to help Missouri Republicans overcome the stain of their last young knight in shining armor, former Governor Eric Greitens. Let me suggest ways in which at least one candidate, McCaskill could make her campaign more honest, spend far less money, and do the voters a real service.
Read more

Ann Wagner: Missouri Congresswoman in absentia
August 3, 2018. By Reece Ellis
Missouri has produced great people who are a credit to our state and are known for their legacy of public service. Congresswoman Ann Wagner [R-MO CD 2] is not one of those great Missourians. Perhaps there was a time she could’ve been, but the Faustian bargain she has made with Donald Trump has divested her of whatever dignity she could’ve hoped to muster after what was an already lackluster congressional career.
Read more

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On November 6, 2018, nestled on the ballot between three other amendments to the Missouri Constitution, four statewide propositions and a bunch of local ballot issues, Missouri voters will find a constitutional amendment proposal about Bingo.  It’s  not a huge issue–a lot of us thought Bingo was settled in the 1980s–but there it is, and rather than be surprised in the polling place, you might as well know about it.

The Bingo issue appears as Amendment 4 on the ballot. Essentially, it’s a tweak to existing regulations about Bingo games run by non-profit organizations. It got on the ballot as a result of a vote in the Missouri legislature. Here’s what it’s about:

It’s an amendment to the Missouri Constitution that would reduce the amount of time required for someone to belong to a group before he/she can manage a Bingo game for the organization. Under current rules, you have to be a member for two years. Under proposed Amendment 4, you need to be a member for just six months.

Amendment 4 also would remove the current ban on advertising for Bingo games.

Why is such a minor-seeming correction being voted on as an amendment to the Missouri Constitution, you ask? Good question. A constitutional amendment is necessary because the original authorization approving Bingo in the state came in the form of a constitutional amendment itself. So, to change an amendment to the constitution, you have to pass another amendment to the constitution.

If you can get past the notion that our state constitution–a document that, in my humble opinion, should be a philosophical framework–is not the place for such picayune administrative details, it’s probably worth a Yes vote, just to clean things up a bit and bring Bingo more in line with other gambling gambits in this state.

The post Bingo amendment on the Missouri midterm ballot appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Rock the Vote? Dance the Vote? How about Confuse the Vote? That’s the situation surrounding Voter ID in Missouri just three weeks before the November 2018 midterm election.

For many years prior to 2017, voter ID in Missouri was relatively straightforward and easy. To vote, you could present any of several different readily available forms of identification, including a Missouri driver’s license, a US passport, a student ID from a Missouri college or university, or something official that included your name and your current address—such as an electric, gas or water bill, or a bank statement, or the voter ID card issued by your local election board. Photo ID was not required.

Then along came photo voter ID mania—the innocent-sounding, voter-suppression gambit foisted upon us by Republican strategists, who disguised it as an anti-fraud measure, which would protect us against supposedly rampant voter impersonation schemes that never existed.

And this year, the voter ID scheme has gone off the rails. Do we need photo ID or don’t we? No one is sure—not even our illustrious Republican Secretary of State, John Ashcroft, Jr. [son of the former US Attorney General and former Missouri Governor John Ashcroft, Sr.].

What’s going on? In a series of warring lawsuits filed this year by voting-rights advocates and the Missouri Secretary of State, the voter ID requirement has come under fire, and has been declared—at various times—both valid and unconstitutional. As of this writing, a Missouri court has ruled that all previously accepted forms of voter ID must be accepted—but that decision is in limbo, because Ashcroft has filed an appeal in the Missouri Supreme Court for a stay of that ruling.

So, we are left with this: Election boards across Missouri don’t know what to tell their pollworkers about acceptable voter ID.

As it stands, according to a training session I attended last night, conducted by a local chapter of The Advancement Project, anyone presenting an appropriate picture ID will be allowed to vote using a regular ballot on November 6. People presenting “secondary” forms of ID—the ones with no photo—will be required to sign an affidavit stating, under penalty of law, that they are who they are—and will then receive a regular ballot. People lacking either the accepted form of photo voter ID or a secondary ID will be given a provisional ballot that will be evaluated later and either accepted or rejected. [Voting rights advocacy groups say that a high percentage of provisional ballots are not counted.]

If the Missouri Supreme court affirms the lower court ruling, the affidavit and the provisional ballot requirements are out. If it stays or overrules the lower court decision, the affidavit and provisional ballot requirements are in.

The net result is the aforementioned confusion. Pollworkers may be unsure about which forms of ID to accept. Election boards—each of which provide their own training to the workers, without a standardized, statewide protocol—may not have time to communicate the most up-to-date ID requirements to the thousands of pollworkers they’re deploying on Election Day. Pollworkers may then have differing perceptions about what’s acceptable, who has to sign an affidavit, who gets a regular ballot and who gets a provisional ballot. And unsuspecting voters may encounter bewildering instructions at their polling places—on an Election Day when the ballot is unusually long and confusing in itself.

Bottom line: Some voters, asked to sign an affidavit, may balk [possibly fearing the legal ramifications of signing an unfamiliar document] and go home without voting. Others may be turned away unfairly by pollworkers who are, themselves, confused about proper procedures.

Here’s what I think: The act of voting should be uncomplicated and routine, because everybody understands what’s required and how it’s done, and because it’s an activity that is organic and valued in a democracy. It shouldn’t be a high-drama situation, fraught with uncertainty. We should err on the side of allowing more people to vote, not fewer. Given the confusion around voting procedures for this election, I’m concerned that some people—even those who vote unimpeded—may begin to doubt the soundness of our voting system and the value of participating in it. And if you don’t trust the vote, what’s left in a democracy? Unfortunately, it appears that confusing the vote, as yet another way of suppressing turnout, is precisely what some people have in mind.

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