JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (CN) — A lawsuit seeking to allow absentee voting for all eligible Missourians in light of the Covid-19 crisis was dismissed by a state judge who found that the complaint asked for measures that went beyond concerns over the pandemic.
“The court takes very seriously the health concerns regarding the Covid-19 pandemic that plaintiffs allege in their petition, but the relief plaintiffs seek is not limited to Covid-19 and goes far beyond the health concerns they raise,” Cole County Circuit Judge Jon Beetem wrote in his opinion Tuesday.
He continued, “Plaintiffs are seeking a radical and permanent transformation of Missouri voting practices without the authorization of the Legislature.”
The American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the lawsuit, has appealed to the Missouri Supreme Court.
“We don’t think the case should have been dismissed,” ACLU lawyer Tony Rothert said in an interview. “But, on the other hand, we all knew this was going to a Missouri Supreme Court resolution and this will get it there faster.”
The ACLU opted to take its appeal straight to the state’s high court instead of an appeals court because two of the lawsuit’s four counts challenge the constitutionality of the voter statutes.
A spokesman for Missouri declined to comment due to the appeal, citing the state’s policy on not discussing ongoing litigation.
Beetem’s decision came on the same day that a Texas federal judge ruled that all of the Lone Star State’s voters can vote by mail after finding the state’s vote-by-mail statute unconstitutional.
The ACLU, ACLU of Missouri and Missouri Voter Protection Coalition filed their lawsuit on April 17 seeking to make absentee mail-in balloting available to all eligible voters in Missouri. It was filed on behalf of the NAACP of Missouri, the League of Women Voters of Missouri and several individual voters.
Missouri law requires voters to provide an excuse in order to vote absentee. One of the allowable reasons is “incapacity or confinement due to illness or physical disability.”
The plaintiffs sought a ruling from the court clarifying that all eligible voters who are confining themselves to avoid contracting or spreading Covid-19 – the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus – may invoke the confinement-due-to-illness reason for absentee voting.
The state countered that the suit argued for “unfettered” absentee voting. In a hearing before Beetem last week, Missouri Solicitor General John Sauer said the incapacity clause was never meant to allow for absentee voting because of fear of contracting an illness and added that there is a risk of contracting an illness in any election, citing past outbreaks of SARS and Ebola.
The state’s attorney also attacked the suit’s class claims, saying that voters in counties with zero confirmed Covid-19 cases are not similarly situated to voters in St. Louis County, where thousands of cases have been confirmed. He further argued that the plaintiffs are asking for absentee ballots to be submitted without signature verification, making the system ripe for voter fraud.
Rothert, representing the plaintiffs, pushed back on the state’s claims during the hearing, claiming the case is “about the fundamental right to vote without risk to health and life.”
Rothert argued that the unique propensity of Covid-19 that allows someone to carry it without symptoms, yet be contagious, makes cramped polling places an area of concern.
He noted that some counties have already issued absentee ballots for voters over 60 years old because they are considered a high-risk group for Covid-19. Rothert argued that the suit was clearly about absentee voting amid the Covid-19 pandemic and not about unrestrained absentee voting rights.