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Politically Speaking: Ashcroft talks about ballots, voting and marijuana

St. Louis Public Radio | By Jo Mannies,
Rachel Lippmann
Published June 28, 2018 at 5:48 PM CDT
Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft
David Kovaluk | St. Louis Public Radio
Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft

On the latest edition of the Politically Speaking podcast, St. Louis Public Radio’s Jo Mannies and Rachel Lippmann welcome Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft – who’s in the midst of a flurry of pre-election activity.

A Republican, Ashcroft was elected during the state’s GOP election landslide of 2016. That year, Missouri voters also approved a photo-ID requirement at the polls.

Ashcroft emphasized that the requirement has wiggle room to allow people who don’t have a government-issued photo ID to still vote, using the state’s old list of allowed IDs.

And he noted that his office is offering free state-issued photo IDs to anybody who needs one. The state also is required by law to help people obtain any necessary records – such as birth certificates – that they need to obtain the photo ID.

Among Ashcroft’s other observations during the podcast:

  • He believes that potential vote fraud is a serious matter, and that photo IDs should not discourage people from voting;
  • He notes that many election jurisdictions around the state are upgrading their voting systems in preparation for this year’s elections. That includes a new form of touchscreen machine that prints out a copy of how a person voted, so they can verify that their votes were accurately recorded;
  • He believes there likely will be five issues on the November ballot, including three dealing with some form of legalization of marijuana. Ashcroft predicts that the pot results will likely end up in court, if voters approve more than one of the measures – which have different provisions.

Follow Jo on Twitter: @jmannies

Follow Rachel on Twitter: @rlippmann

Follow Jay Ashcroft on Twitter: @MissouriSOS

Music - "This Land is Your Land," Boston Pops Orchestra

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Jo Mannies
Jo Mannies has been covering Missouri politics and government for almost four decades, much of that time as a reporter and columnist at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. She was the first woman to cover St. Louis City Hall, was the newspaper’s second woman sportswriter in its history, and spent four years in the Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau. She joined the St. Louis Beacon in 2009. She has won several local, regional and national awards, and has covered every president since Jimmy Carter. She scared fellow first-graders in the late 1950s when she showed them how close Alaska was to Russia and met Richard M. Nixon when she was in high school. She graduated from Valparaiso University in northwest Indiana, and was the daughter of a high school basketball coach. She is married and has two grown children, both lawyers. She’s a history and movie buff, cultivates a massive flower garden, and bakes banana bread regularly for her colleagues.
See stories by Jo Mannies
Rachel Lippmann
Lippmann returned to her native St. Louis after spending two years covering state government in Lansing, Michigan. She earned her undergraduate degree from Northwestern University and followed (though not directly) in Maria Altman's footsteps in Springfield, also earning her graduate degree in public affairs reporting. She's also done reporting stints in Detroit, Michigan and Austin, Texas. Rachel likes to fill her free time with good books, good friends, good food, and good baseball.