It's tough to vote absentee when the information needed to punch such ballots is absent.

Cape Girardeau County election officials received the blank punchcard ballots for the Nov. 5 election from the printer Tuesday morning. But the accompanying list of candidates and issues needed for voting didn't arrive.

As a result, the county clerk's offices in Cape Girardeau and Jackson won't be ready to handle absentee voting this morning, the official start of the absentee voting period which begins six weeks before the election.

The last-minute addition of the statewide measure to increase cigarette and tobacco taxes delayed printing of ballot information, officials said.

Under state law, voters can start applying for absentee ballots or vote absentee in person at county election offices beginning today.

But voting can't begin without the ballot information, said Patty Schlosser, election supervisor for Cape Girardeau County Clerk Rodney Miller. She said she hopes the printed materials will arrive this week.

New election law

Absentee voting also is at the center of attention in Missouri's new election law whose provisions have confused some county election officials in the state.

St. Louis County election officials said last week that that Missourians who register by mail must vote for the first time in person or present proper identification in person before they can obtain absentee ballots.

But state election officials said Tuesday that under the law, which took effect Aug. 28, first-time voters can obtain absentee ballots by mail as long as they include a copy of a driver's license or other proper identification.

Miller said he wasn't aware of the change in the law.

But several county clerks in other counties reported they were aware of the new provision.

Boone County Clerk Wendy Noren helped write the new election law. She said it is important for county election officials throughout the state "to get our act together and have everybody doing things the same way."

Said Noren, "Unless we are all working from the same set of rules, we are going to make the people in Florida look like geniuses."

Spence Jackson, spokesman for Secretary of State Matt Blunt, said the new rules are designed to combat election fraud that was possible under the old law.

"Before, there was a loophole in the law," he said. Jackson cited the case of a pet dog in St. Louis whose owner mailed in a voter registration card in the dog's name and obtained an absentee ballot for the animal.

Voter registration

Missourians have until 5 p.m. Oct. 9 to register to vote.

They can do so by mail or in person at the county clerk's offices and license bureaus in Cape Girardeau and Jackson, the Cape Girardeau Public Library, Riverside Regional Library in Jackson, and the Cape Girardeau County Public Health Center and the state unemployment claims and Missouri Division of Family Services offices in Cape Girardeau.

State law doesn't allow Missourians to vote absentee simply for convenience. To obtain an absentee ballot, a voter must cite illness, disability, being a caretaker of someone who is disabled or elderly, or that he or she will be out of town on Election Day.

Schlosser said she knows some people lie so they can vote absentee and avoid standing in line. "I have a mother and son who do that every single election. They write me a letter saying that they are going to be out of town," she said.

Schlosser said election authorities aren't in a position to dispute voters' ballot-application statements.

Hundreds of Cape Girardeau County residents vote absentee in major elections, she said. In the August primary, 612 people cast absentee ballots. In the November 2000 presidential election, 1,874 voters cast absentee ballots.

The November election isn't a presidential election, but Miller anticipates 1,000 to 1,200 of the county's nearly 50,000 voters may cast absentee ballots.

Florence Rossiter of Cape Girardeau will be one of those absentee voters. Rossiter, who lives in Chateau Girardeau retirement center, has filled out absentee ballots for the past four or five years.

"It's good because you can do it in your home," said Rossiter, who gets around with the aid of a walker. "I have had several surgeries and broken bones."

Rossiter said she doesn't want to take a chance on trying to get out and vote in bad weather. "You never know what the weather will be," she said.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.

mbliss@semissourian.com

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