The elections clerk in central Missouri’s Boone County is not updating voter rolls, blaming “confusion” over the state’s new congressional redistricting.
County Clerk Brianna Lennon, a Democrat, said Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, a Republican, must first decide whether there’s enough valid signatures for a ballot measure asking voters to overturn the new districts.
“There’s no way at this time for us to make any updates to the voter registration system that’s maintained by the Secretary of State’s office because administratively, they haven’t made the required updates to allow us to do that,” Lennon told Missourinet. “The address that each voter lives at needs to be tied to a particular congressional district…and those congressional districts are defined as the 2022 maps that were passed when we did redistricting the last time. We need to have a second set of congressional map definitions.”
Hoskins disagreed and accused Lennon of defying the court and state election authority. He told Missourinet that Lennon has access to all the data needed to update Boone County’s voter rolls.
“This is a process as far as instituting that, and we’ve had several county clerks across the state that have began that redistricting process,” Hoskins said. “The county clerks here in the state of Missouri have the information that they need to begin that process.”
The Missouri Supreme Court ruled this week that the new voting districts would be suspended if Hoskins qualifies the ballot measure.
Meanwhile, Miller County Clerk and fellow Republican Clinton Jenkins agrees with Lennon. Miller is also President of the Missouri Association of County Clerks and Election Authorities (MACCEA).
“(Lennon’s) an attorney. She is way smarter than I am,” Jenkins told Missourinet. “So, it’s going to be up to her. Each individual county clerk, I mean, whatever decision they make, it’s on them. But if she feels like there’s an issue, there’s an issue.”
He suggested there’s a legitimate argument to Boone County’s position that it cannot update voter rolls based on the new map.
“The map cuts Columbia in half, not exactly in half, but you know what I mean,” Miller said. “I mean, she’s going to need a line-by-line-by-street. I’ve seen a little bit of her map, and I mean, it’s cutting houses in half.”
Meanwhile, Mssouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway is warning local election clerks that they must use the state’s newly approved congressional map or risk legal consequences. Some counties are saying they’ll wait for direction before making changes, while others plan to move forward.
Hoskins has until August 4 to decide whether to validate the ballot measure. That date coincides with Missouri’s Democratic and Republican party primaries.
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