Survey Says: Don't Disenfranchise People Just Because They Might Not Vote for Your Friends

Here's a sampling of recent editorials on Republican efforts to skew elections by creating new hurdles to voting, a fundamental right in Missouri.  Newspapers from across the state have condemned similar efforts for years. 

Columbia Daily Tribune, 5/7: "Republicans in the General Assembly are in the process of passing wrongheaded legislation adding another burden to Missouri voters. When it arrives on his desk, Gov. Jay Nixon should veto it..."

Joplin Globe, 5/6: "In 2006, Missouri courts recognized that requiring voters to provide photo identification before they can vote violates the state’s constitution. The court’s message clear: A law like this would create barriers at the polls for some senior citizens, college students, poor people and some people with disabilities. Why? Because they make up the nearly 230,000 voters in our state who do not possess driver’s licenses, one of the easiest and most-often used forms of photo identification. The measure is back, and in our view it does more to disenfranchise voters than it does to protect them..."

St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 5/5: "It's beyond unfortunate that as one of their top priorities, the Republicans who control the Missouri Legislature set out this year to make it harder, not easier, for Missourians to vote. The effort, referred to as voter ID, is part of a national GOP plan to raise barriers to large swaths of voters who generally lean Democratic in their political philosophy..."

The Star, 5/1: "Missouri is working hard to join Kansas and the other states that seek to undercut voting rights by requiring photo identifications at the polls...[T]he restrictions would make voting much harder for hundreds of elderly and disabled Missourians, not to mention students and legal immigrants..."