Election day is less than two weeks away, and Missouri, Illinois, and the St. Louis region have some big races coming up. This is also the first election in Missouri that will require photo ID to vote and the first one with no-excuse absentee voting. Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft joined KMOX to talk about what the new laws mean for voters.
Ashcroft explained that Missouri has always required an excuse for people who choose to vote with an absentee ballot. Those excuses include things like being out of state for college, being in the military, or living in an assisted living facility.
"What we have this year for the first time is, there's a two week period — we're in it now — where anyone who wants, you don't have to have an excuse, you can just say I want to vote now, you can go vote in person, absentee at the election authority for the two weeks before the election," Ashcroft said.
For people who don't have a government-issued photo ID, there is an option to fill out a provisional ballot. That ballot still counts, but it has to undergo some additional verification.
"They'll have a provisional ballot envelope, where you'll fill out some extra information about yourself, you'll sign that, and then they'll use that information on the outside of the ballot envelope — including your signature — to verify your identity once the polls close," Ashcroft explained. "And then they'll just take that ballot out and run into the tabulator when your identity is verified."
While Illinois has had mail-in voting as an option for years, Missouri still hasn't adopted it. Ashcroft said he's not a big believer of mail-in ballots.
"I think the easiest way if you are going to cheat the system is with ballots that are mailed in as opposed to people showing up and proving their identity in person," he said. "If you look, historically, at elections, where there have been problems, it's generally been because of mail in ballots of one sort or another coming in at the last minute, and they're counting ballots for days."
According to reporting from NPR, there is a slightly higher chance of voter fraud using mail-in ballots, but it's such a small amount that it's "not statistically meaningful." An investigation by The Hill shows that voter fraud accounts for 0.00006% of votes cast.
Hear more from Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft on the upcoming Midterm Elections:
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