The man Republican voters nominated for Missouri Secretary of State 12 years ago is making another run for the post.
Shane Schoeller of Springfield, the former Speaker Pro-tem of the Missouri House, lost a close contest in 2012 to Democrat Jason Kander. Schoeller told Missourinet he’s not concerned that he’s been out of the public eye, at least on a statewide level.
“You know, we have found a lot of the folks that supported me in 2012, they’re glad I’m running again here in 2024. But clearly, you know, in 12 years, things change,” he said. “There’s a lot of new people who are voting now that didn’t vote then. People have moved here, (but) we have been out working hard.”
Schoeller currently serves as clerk of Greene County, Missouri’s fourth-largest county, where he oversees elections. He believes that makes him well-qualified to oversee elections on a statewide level. He’s also a “firm believer” in using a paper ballot.
“Because you always want a paper trail,” Schoeller said. “For example, (the) election equipment we have here in Greene County, we went to purchase that in late 2017, early 2018. But one of the key things that I focused in on was making sure there was no connectivity to the internet.”
Schoeller added that they also have to be on guard against human error, making sure that the software that reads ballot coding is programmed correctly so that it gives accurate results. If elected, he said he would also work to recruit more election judges to work at polling sites in Missouri.
“It’s very hard in our more urban, denser areas of the state to find Republicans to serve as election judges,” he said. “And in the rural areas, it’s a lot harder to find Democrats to serve as election judges.”
He also wants to make it state law that absentee ballots returned by mail have to have the voter’s signature on the outer envelopes verified in order for the ballot to be counted.
Schoeller is running against fellow Republicans Jamie Corley, Mary Elizabeth Coleman, Dean Plocher, Denny Hoskins, Adam Schwadron, Valentina Gomez, and Mike Carter. Three Democrats are running for Secretary of State: Haley Jacobson, Barbara Phifer, and Monique Williams. Carl Herman Freese is the Libertarian Party nominee for Secretary of State.
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