A wide-ranging elections bill would restore Missouri’s presidential primary and lengthen the time that voters can cast an absentee ballot in-person without and excuse.
It’s sponsored by State Rep. Peggy McGaugh, R-Carroll County. McGaugh, a former county clerk, described the decision to replace the primary with party caucuses a few years ago as a mistake.
“It was a test and unfortunately, we’re told by both parties that it was a test that failed,” she told Missourinet. “Not enough people showed up.”
She also told Missourinet that both Democrats and Republicans liked that people came to the polls to vote for president.
“They feel like they got a larger turnout in the cross section of the people’s ideas of what candidate they wanted to, uh, be the candidate of choice to go on,” McGaugh said.
The proposal received both strong support and opposition at a Missouri House hearing this week. Opponents argued that bringing back the presidential primary would cost the state millions of dollars.
McGaugh’s bill would also expand Missouri’s no-excuse absentee voting period from two to four weeks. She said feedback from county clerks in larger counties suggested strong support for expanding the no-excuse voting period.
Jennifer Spena, with the Freedom Principle MO group, spoke in opposition to the bill. She said doubling the no-excuse absentee voting period would cost the state more money and increase the risk of abuse and fraud. A government-issued photo ID is required to cast an absentee ballot in-person without an excuse.
Other provision in the bill include:
- Requires that automatic tabulating equipment be tested no later than a week before an election
- Requires that lists of absentee ballot applications from people with permanent disabilities be kept confidential and not be publicly displayed
- Allows provisional ballots to be cast in any public election
- Bans electioneering, exit polling, surveying, and sampling within 50 feet of a polling place on Election Day (current law bans them within 25 feet)
The Missouri House Committee on Elections has not yet voted on McGaugh’s bill. She served as Carroll County Clerk for 32 years, overseeing elections there, before being elected to the Missouri House of Representatives.
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