Missouri House gives early approval to voter ID legislation, shoots down Brandon Ellington’s amendment to include ‘voter suppression’ in its title

Missouri House Republicans, by and large, think there’s a problem with people illegally voting in elections.

And they’re not totally wrong. Among them walks a lawmaker, Kansas City Rep. John Rizzo, who won a 2010 election by a single vote. A couple relatives of his cast votes in that election, even though they didn’t live in the district.

Voter fraud and impersonation is a frequently alleged phenomenon, and also one that’s rarely proved. Legislative fixes to this limited problem risks running off greater numbers of potential voters.

In Missouri’s case, lawmakers are considering a constitutional amendment that would require government-issued photo identification in order to vote.

Opponents to House Joint Resolution 53 believe that photo ID requirements can lead to disenfranchisement, particularly among poorer and disabled populations who might lack the means and paperwork required to obtain proper identification. Voter identification laws tend to fall along partisan lines. Democrats will claim, as they have in Missouri, that the Republican-dominated General Assembly wants to complicate voting for people who might tend to vote for Democrats.

Rep. Brandon Ellington, a Kansas City Democrat, mirrored this sentiment when he introduced an amendment on the House floor on Wednesday that would insert the words “voter suppression” into the title of the voter ID legislation. The suggestion failed easily.

So did another amendment offered up by Rep. Randy Dunn, another Kansas City Democrat, who called for automatic voter registration for anyone getting a driver’s license.

The House still has to give final approval to the joint resolution before it can go to the Senate. But that’s likely, given the makeup of the Missouri House. It’s less certain that it would advance out of the Senate. Since it’s a constitutional amendment, voters would have the final say if the measure makes the ballot.

The Missouri Supreme Court once declared photo ID laws unconstitutional in 2006. But if the constitution changes, which this latest legislation seeks to do, that could take care of the constitutional question.