A crowd attends a rally as part of the 2021 Missouri Voting Rights Lobby Day at the state Capitol in Jefferson City, Mo., on March 31. The Republican-led House approved a bill that would impose strict photo ID and other requirements on voting.
Jacob Moscovitch for
The same day last month that Georgia’s legislature passed a controversial new voting bill, Missouri’s Republican-led House approved one of its own. It would impose strict photo ID and other requirements on voting.
Both bills are part of a wave of measures proposed across the country after the 2020 elections, and reflect a deep partisan divide over who has access to the polls and how. The divide is not new, but the sides have become increasingly entrenched.
Jacob Moscovitch for NPR
Voting rights activists who gathered recently on the steps of the Missouri Capitol in Jefferson City know they’re part of a much bigger struggle. They represent groups — the NAACP, the ACLU, the League of Women Voters, Black faith organizations and others — that are fighting restrictive voting laws across the country.
“We are here today to say ‘no.’ No to voter suppression. No to photo ID. And no to efforts to silence the voices of Missouri’s voters any longer,” called out Denise Lieberman, who runs the Missouri Voter Protection Coalition.
The group was formed 15 years ago when Missouri was one of the first states that tried to enact strict voter ID requirements. The Missouri effort has been tangled in legal challenges ever since. Republicans now want to strike a provision that gives voters the option of using a non-photo ID, after a court struck down the most recent version.
This long battle has assumed a new sense of urgency, after unprecedented challenges to the results of last year’s elections. Democrats, and especially voters of color, say bills being pushed in Missouri and in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan and elsewhere are part of a broad assault on democracy. They note Missouri Republicans are also trying to impose new limits on ballot initiatives and street protests.
The Rev. Darryl Gray is the chair of the social justice commission for the Missionary State Baptist Convention of Missouri and part of the Missouri Voter Protection Coalition.
Jacob Moscovitch for NPR
The Rev. Darryl Gray, a coalition member, sees the GOP effort as a direct response to recent Democratic success at the polls, with the help of Black and brown voters.
“It is deliberate. It is strategic. And it’s all about securing and maintaining political power,” he said, before leading the crowd of about 30 activists in a chant. “No more Jim Crow! No more Jim Crow!” they shouted before entering the Capitol.
Inside, the partisan split was on clear display. Democrats were the ones wearing masks; Republicans did not. And while the protesters were outside chanting, Republicans were hearing from gun rights activists in the Rotunda. They included Patricia and Mark McCloskey, the armed St. Louis couple who were criminally charged after they confronted Black Lives Matter protesters outside their home last year.
For the voting rights activists, the GOP embrace of the McCloskeys is another sign that lawmakers in Missouri are intent on silencing their voices.
Republicans insist nothing could be further from the truth, that they only want to make common sense improvements in election law.
“I’ve been called racist and Nazi and everything else, and it is just totally false,” said Rep. Cheri Toalson Reisch. She’s the author of a provision in the House-passed voting bill that would give the secretary of state power to clean up the voter rolls, which opponents fear could lead to aggressive purges.
Members of the Missouri State House vote on March 31 in Jefferson City, Mo. The divide over voting rights is not new, but the sides have become increasingly entrenched.
Jacob Moscovitch for NPR
Reisch says she’s trying to shore up the system so voters are confident it’s safe from fraud. She’s been on a 40-year crusade to remove from registration lists the names of those who’ve moved or died.
