Missouri residents voting by mail must return those ballots by U.S. mail only after an appeals court sided with Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft on Wednesday and upheld the law that was challenged in a district court.
Mail-in ballots must be received by Election Day to be counted.
The appeal, filed by Ashcroft, came after a judge ruled in a federal suit filed by St. Louis-based Organization for Black Struggle against Ashcroft. The court’s ruling in that suit stated mail-in ballots (not to be confused with absentee ballots) could also be returned either in-person to local election authorities, by private party mailing services and by third parties, like a family member.
Local election authorities did not appeal the ruling, Ashcroft did and he was granted a temporary stay until the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals reviewed the case. While Ashcroft’s motion for stay was granted, the court’s opinion had not been published.
Following the ruling, Yinka Faleti, Democratic nominee for Missouri Secretary of State, released a statement accusing Ashcroft of making it more difficult for Missourians to vote.
“When Jay Ashcroft wins, the people of Missouri lose,” said Faleti. “There is no justification for the secretary of state to be fighting this hard to make it more difficult for Missourians to return their ballots. It is clear that he has only his personal partisan motives in mind and cares nothing about performing his duty as our state’s chief elections officer.”
During a press conference last week, American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri Legal Director Tony Rothert noted that under the current rule for mail-in ballots, a voter who went to their local election authority to get their mail-in ballot notarized would have to leave that office and then mail the ballot to the very office they just left.
“We don’t think that makes much sense,” he said last week. “So our hope is that the Secretary of State resolves this situation by just dismissing his appeal, and that would resolve it instantly.”
Rothert said he doesn’t think it was a coincidence that no local election officials appealed the ruling that would allow the various delivery methods of all mail-in ballots, not just absentee. He believes it would simplify their job by erasing the need to determine whether each ballot is an absentee or mail-in — which have different requirements.
According to Ashcroft’s government website, as of Monday there have been 6,896 mail-in ballots requested and 539,863 absentee ballots requested. In addition, 423,995 ballots have been returned to local election authorities as of Monday.