Missouri’s top election official will renew her push in 2009 for an early voting law.

Secretary of State Robin Carnahan heard the stories in November about people having to stand in line for a long time, or having only limited time to vote, or having to leave a polling place to go to work before they could vote. She says there is no excuse for Missouri voters not having the same convenience of early voting that citizens of 35 other states have. Some lawmakers favor "no excuse" absentee voting which Carnahan says is not much different for the voter, but it’s a lot different for election administrators. "Early voting is a cheaper alternative that gets us to the same place and I think it’s also something that is more likely to prevent any kind of fraud because if you have somebody showing up in person they’re going to be the person they say they are. If you mail out a ballot, you don’t always know who votes that," she says. Carnahan says she has made the same early voting proposal that Matt Blunt made as Secretary of State. Democrats opposed the idea when Blunt, a Republican, made it; Republicans have opposed it since Carnahan, a Democrat, has picked up the issue. She says it feels to her as if "pure politics" has been the hurdle in the past. But she says she’ll keep trying to get past that and get early voting approved. .

 

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