JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Election officials will have more specific procedures to follow when considering a person's eligibility for provisional voting under an agreement reached Thursday between Republican Secretary of State Matt Blunt and two Democratic officeholders.

"The case has been resolved with no one winning and no one losing," Cole County Circuit Court Judge Byron Kinder said after both sides presented their cases in a lawsuit filed last week by Auditor Claire McCaskill and state Sen. Maida Coleman, both Democrats.

Under the agreement, the new rule will go into effect at 5 p.m. today.

"The new rule reinforces that if a voter's eligibility cannot be determined immediately, that voter shall be entitled to a provisional ballot," said Don Downing, a St. Louis attorney representing McCaskill and Coleman.

Terry Jarrett, chief counsel for Blunt, said the revised rule is more specific about what election judges must do to determine voter eligibility.

"I think the judge wanted us to specifically outline the steps that an election judge is to follow in this provisional balloting process determining eligibility," Jarrett said.

The judge's ruling requires that if election officials can't verify a voter's eligibility, they must contact the local election authority, such as a county clerk. If the election authority can't be reached immediately or can't immediately verify eligibility, the voter must be given a provisional ballot.

Suit filed last week

McCaskill and Coleman filed a lawsuit last week claiming that Blunt's rule imposed more restrictions than allowed under a law passed earlier this year governing provisional voting.

That law allows a person whose eligibility is questioned to cast a provisional ballot in federal and state races. The ballot is counted only if the person's eligibility is later verified.

To implement the law, Blunt's office drafted rules that took effect Monday and were challenged by McCaskill and Coleman. Blunt has said his rule and the new law are aimed at preventing voter fraud.

Following the November 2000 elections, Blunt released a report concluding that court orders issued in the city and county of St. Louis improperly allowed 1,233 people to vote.

Also in 2000, hundreds of voters were turned away from the polls in St. Louis, prompting a judge to order the polls open after their scheduled closing -- a decision overruled later that night.

Blunt said Thursday that he was pleased by the court's decision and maintained that the original lawsuit would have caused chaos by allowing anyone to receive provisional ballots.

Blunt said the new ruling maintains the intent of the original rule, which requires election judges to contact central election offices for voter verifications and requires people to vote in assigned polling places.

"There may be some modifications around the edges with this agreement but I would feel confident at this point that our central premise that local election authorities have the tools to conduct an orderly election remains intact," Blunt said.