Ruling forces change in absentee-ballot procedure in some counties

Voters who cast their absentee ballots in the Cape Girardeau County Clerk’s offices in the November election will not be able to place their ballot in an automatic vote-counting machine.

The ballots will have to be sealed in special envelopes like ones that are mailed, said Clerk Kara Clark Summers.

A St. Louis circuit judge ruled recently in an absentee-ballot case that Missouri law requires all absentee ballots to be placed in required envelopes with voter-identification information to be counted in an election.

The judge found the St. Louis board of election commissioners allowed 142 people to vote at the board’s office in the August Democratic primary by touch screen. Circuit Judge Rex Burlison tossed out the results of a state representative race, which ultimately led to a revote.

Summers said her office always has verified the identity of voters.

“We have all the paperwork matched up and verified,” she said. “We verify every absentee ballot.”

She said her office allowed in-person absentee voters in the August election to put their ballots into a vote-counting machine as they would at a regular polling place.

Summers said she and a number of other county clerks in the larger counties believed such a practice, as well as letting voters cast touch-screen ballots, was legal in Missouri.

But the judge’s ruling in the St. Louis case has forced county election officials across the state to scrap such technology until a new law takes effect in 2018, Summers said.

“We will be using the envelopes,” she said.

Absentee voting begins Tuesday for the Nov. 8 general election. Voters can cast absentee ballots until 5 p.m. Nov. 7, the day before the general election, Summers said.

The ruling won’t affect absentee voting in Scott and Perry counties, election officials said.

Longtime Scott County Clerk Rita Milam said all absentee ballots cast in person at her office are placed in the proper envelopes and locked away until they are brought out to be counted Election Day.

“That has always been the state law,” Milam said.

The issue was discussed recently at a meeting of county clerks and election officials at Sikeston, Missouri, she said.

Election laws have changed over the years to allow for the use of modern technology, except as it relates to absentee voting, she said.

Machines now count votes immediately at polling places.

In the case of paper ballots, voters can slide their ballot into a vote-counting machine that will spit it back out if the ballot has been “over voted” for a particular office, Milam said.

Voters then can return the ballot to election judges to be marked spoiled and be given a new ballot to cast.

But under state law, absentee ballots cannot be handled that way, Milam said.

A new statute, enacted this year, will allow absentee voters to cast ballots in person with the use of modern technology, starting in 2018, she said.

“County clerks have been trying to get the change for some time,” she said.

Perry County Clerk Jared Kutz said the absentee-voting problem faced in St. Louis is not an issue in his county.

“We use the envelopes,” he said.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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