KANSAS CITY, Mo. — As primary and general elections loom later this year, the Missouri chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit against the state to allow absentee voting by mail.
The suit was filed Friday in Cole County on behalf of the NAACP of Missouri, the League of Women Voters of Missouri and individual residents.
Under Missouri law, voters must provide an excuse in order to vote absentee by mail.
The ACLU says that as residents continue to try to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, they should be able to use one of the state’s acceptable excuses — the incapacity or confinement due to illness or physical injury — to request an absentee ballot.
“No one should be forced to choose between staying safe and voting,” ACLU’s Voting Rights Project deputy director Sophia Lin Lakin said in a news release. ‘Expanding absentee ballot access to all registered voters during the pandemic is a common-sense solution that protects people’s health and their right to vote.”
