David Becker [Senior Attorney, People for the American Way Foundation]: "Last week Missouri's Supreme Court, with only one justice dissenting, upheld long-standing constitutional and legal principles in striking down Missouri's restrictive voter ID law. Though the state claimed that the law was necessary to combat alleged voter impersonation fraud, the facts were undisputed that voter impersonation fraud is not a problem in Missouri. In fact, Gov. Matt Blunt (R), a supporter of the voter ID law, himself declared that the 2002 and 2004 elections in Missouri were "fraud-free."

Furthermore, the ID requirement expressly excludes those voting by absentee ballot, where even voter ID advocates agree voter impersonation fraud is most likely to occur, if it exists at all. Thus, rather than preventing such fraud, the exclusion of absentee ballots from the requirement actually provides a road map for the commission of such fraud.

Finally, voter ID laws like Missouri's place severe burdens on voters, and those burdens are most heavily placed on those least likely to be able to bear such a burden — minorities, poor, and the elderly. Both Democratic and Republican state officials agreed that at least 135,000 eligible Missouri voters did not have the requisite ID to cast a ballot necessary to obtain such an ID — birth certificates, passports, etc. — costs money, which is a tremendous burden on a low-income voter, and effectively creates a poll tax, in violation of constitutional principles.

Missouri's Supreme Court has served the citizens of Missouri admirably, in protecting and reaffirming their fundamental right to vote free of burdensome bureaucratic barriers."