A lawsuit that asks the legislature’s early voting proposal be thrown off the November ballot raises issues of truth….or untruth by omission.
The legislature’s proposed six-day early voting period was sent to the ballot after thousands of Missourians signed petitions seeking a vote on an early-voting period more than twice as long as the legislature’s proposal.
The lawsuit has been filed on behalf of longtime St. Louis Civil Rights figure Norman Seay by the American Civil Liberties Union. ACLU Executive Director Jeffrey Mittman says the suit does not want to deny Missourians a chance to vote. But it says they should vote for an honest proposal–which the legislature’s language is not. “The legal matter before the court will be, ‘is the language as drafted by the legislature defective or not; is it misleading?’ And it is in that it states it would permit early voting but it would not. There would not be early voting unless and until there is a legislative appropriation and there’s no indication whether or not that would occur.”
Mittman says it’s not too early to challenge an issue not headed for a vote for four more months. He says it’s never too early to engage the public in discussion of an issue that involves one of the nation’s basic rights.AUDIO: Mittman interview 638
