Trial to challenge Missouri's new voter suppression law begins

When Missouri passed its sweeping voter suppression law in June 2022, it faced swift, determined opposition from voting rights activists.

The League of Women Voters of Missouri (LWVMO) and the Missouri NAACP (MO NAACP) filed a lawsuit two months later to block some of the law's worst provisions. A Missouri judge granted a preliminary injunction for the plaintiffs and temporarily blocked four provisions while the case proceeded. A trial begins Monday before a single judge to determine whether the law's provisions violate parts of the Missouri Constitution.

The lawsuit centers on four provisions of the law that affect voter registration and absentee voting. Three of those provisions include a prohibition on receiving money for soliciting voter registration applications, a requirement for unpaid individuals soliciting more than 10 voter registration applications to register with the Secretary of State, and a requirement that all solicitors of voter registration applications be registered as Missouri voters.

The final provision challenged in the lawsuit is a ban on individuals and groups asking voters whether they want to fill out an application to vote by mail.

Under the new law, organizations and individuals who violate these provisions face fines and even more serious consequences, such as prison time and permanent loss of voting rights in Missouri.

But the law, the plaintiffs say, does not specify what it means to “induce a voter to submit an application for an absentee ballot,” nor does it provide clear definitions of “candidate canvassing” and “compensation,” making these bans vague and unclear. Essentially, these provisions make it harder for pro-choice voters like LWVMO and the MO NAACP to hire people to help with voter registration across the Cave State.

The law, argue the pro-choice plaintiffs, “shocks [their] protected speech, expressive behavior and club activities, thereby prohibiting them from fully engaging their members and other eligible voters and postal voters.” And with regard to the ban on postal voting advertising, “the[s] their voter education and engagement in postal voting, which limits their freedom of speech and expression as well as their membership in associations.”

When the lawsuit was first filed in 2022, a Missouri judge temporarily blocked those four provisions, concluding that the plaintiffs “have a fair chance to succeed on the merits.” The judge also said that if those provisions remain in place, both pro-choice groups that filed the lawsuit face “'threat of irreparable harm'” without an injunction.

“With these Jim Crow provisions, lawmakers have taken away important opportunities for us to engage in our communities by criminalizing our ability to encourage voting and good citizenship,” said Nimrod Chapel Jr., president of the MO NAACP, at the time of the injunction. “Black voters have been disproportionately harmed by these restrictions.”

Now, nearly two years after the judge granted the plaintiffs a preliminary injunction, the trial before the single judge is finally beginning. In their original complaint, the plaintiffs argued that Missouri lawmakers had “no compelling or even legitimate interest in so severely restricting the content and dissemination of plaintiffs' political speech, expression, and association on behalf of voter registration and absentee voting.”

The judge who issued the injunction stated in his 2022 opinion that the “chilling effect of the challenged provisions could lead to greater voter confusion and lower voter turnout.” If these provisions remain in place, they will undoubtedly have a significant impact on the work of citizen groups like the LWVMO and the MO NAACP during a critical election period.

Learn more about the case here.