On October 16, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled 6-1 that a new law, requiring voters to show government-issued photo ID to vote at the polls, violates the Missouri Constitution. The case is Weinschenk v State, SC88039. The court pointed out that although state ID cards are free, they require a birth certificate, and birth certificates cost $15. Furthermore, it takes 6 to 8 weeks to get a birth certificate.

The case depends on the Missouri Constitution’s provision that “all elections shall be free and open; and no power, civil or military, shall at any time interfere to prevent the free exercise of the right of suffrage.” The Court said that gives more voting rights protection than the U.S. Constitution does.

Ballot access cases now pending in state court in New Hampshire, Oklahoma and North Carolina, also depend on similar state constitutional provisions. The Missouri decision on Photo-ID will be somewhat useful to the pending ballot access cases in the state courts of these other states. Any time any state’s State Supreme Court says that its own Constitution gives more protection for voting rights than the U.S. Constitution does, that strengthens the principle in other states with similar language in their state’s constitution. The Oklahoma ballot access case has already lost in lower state court, because the lower state court didn’t seem to think that Oklahoma’s similar State Constitutional provision gives any more protection for voting rights than the U.S. Constitution.