The deadline to request an absentee ballot in St. Louis is July 22, but voters who miss it can still skip potential lines in the Tuesday, August 4 primary election.
You can vote absentee Monday through Friday at the election headquarters in both the St. Louis City (300 N. Tucker Blvd.) and St. Louis County (725 Northwest Plaza Dr.) until the day before the election. There, you will fill out the absentee request form and vote all in one visit. This process began on June 23.
“It’s really no different than going to a polling location on election day,” said Eric Fey, Democratic director of elections for the St. Louis County Election Board. “The procedure is pretty much the same.”
Both the city and county have not had any lines, officials said, and about 45% of the votes cast in the August 4 primary election will be done by absentee ballots.
On Thursday, July 23, the county will open up four more satellite locations for walk-in absentee voting or to drop off ballots received by mail. They are St. Louis County Library Mid-County Branch (7821 Maryland Ave.), North County Recreation Complex (2577 Redman Road), South County Government Center Keller Plaza (4554 Lemay Ferry Rd) and West County Government Center (74 Clarkson Wilson Centre). Locations and hours for these locations can be found at www.stlouisco.com/elections. Voters should bring a driver’s license, a voter ID card or utility bill, officials said.
Many voters said they’ve been confused about whether they qualify for absentee voting under the new COVID-19 guidelines. The new reason, Option 7, states that a voter is at high-risk for contracting COVID-19, including being over 65, immunocompromised, have diabetes, asthma, liver disease and other such conditions. Option 2 is that voters are “incapacity or confinement due to illness or physical disability, including a person who is primarily responsible for the physical care of a person who is incapacitated or confined due to illness or disability.”
However, in layman’s terms, Option 2 means that if the voter is sick — even with a common cold — or anyone in their household is sick, then they should check Option 2.
“I would certainly encourage folks to choose that option,” Fey said, regarding the voter or someone in the voter’s household having cold-like symptoms.
In some conversations on social media, people say they’re afraid that they could be slapped with a felony if their reason for voting absentee is challenged. Fey said that’s highly unlikely.
“If they feel like they qualify, then that’s the reason they should use,” Fey said. “Here at the election office, we take a person’s application at face value. We don’t know if they are going to be out of town. We have no way to investigate. We have no way to check on them to see if they actually left. If information is brought to us that someone lied on an absentee ballot form, then we have the duty to tell the county prosecutor. In all my years of experience, I have never heard of someone being investigated for being out of town on election day or that they were sick.”
For more information on absentee voting in the city, call 314-622-3230. For the county, call 314-615-1800.
