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Ashcroft Begins Effort to Educate Voters on Missouri ID Law

Missouri Capitol
Ryan Famuliner
/
KBIA
The Capitol building in Jefferson City. GOP legislators are opposing the appointment of a Columbia attorney to the UM System Board of Curators.

Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft has launched an effort to educate voters about Missouri's new voter identification law.

The law, approved by nearly two-thirds of voters in November, doesn't take effect until June. Voters in municipal elections on Tuesday and on April 4 are not subject to the new law.

Speaking at a news conference Today at St. Louis City Hall, Ashcroft, a Republican, says he wants to make sure that all eligible voters can cast a ballot. He called Missouri's law a model for other states because it contains provisions that allow voting even without a photo ID.

But opponents claim that the voter ID law is a thinly-disguised way of suppressing votes in poor and minority areas that tend to be largely Democratic.

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