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Sec. of state orders judges not to keep polls open past deadline

JEFFERSON CITY - Missouri's secretary of state has made it clear: this year's voting hours won't be decided in the courts.

Republican Secretary of State Matt Blunt - the person who oversees elections in Missouri - on Friday sent a 6-page letter to Missouri's 45 circuit court judges stating it's illegal for them to keep the polls open past the 7 p.m. statutory closing time.

"We just wanted to send a friendly reminder and a clarification letter," said Blunt's spokesperson Spence Jackson.

The letters come in response to actions taken in St. Louis during the 2000 presidential election, when Circuit Court Judge Evelyn Baker ordered the polls in St. Louis to stay open until 10 p.m. Her decision was quickly overturned by the Missouri Court of Appeals which ordered the polls closed at 7:45 p.m.

Blunt's message - which he already sent to judges during the May and August primaries - is that polls should stay open long enough for anyone in line by 7 p.m. to cast their vote, but that no one should be allowed to join the line after that time.

But Missouri Democratic Party executive director Mike Kelley says things aren't that simple.

"2000 was a special set of circumstances," Kelley said. "There were literally times in St. Louis when polls were closed for hours while they were sorting out details."

Kelley said some voters got upset at the delays and left the lines. When they returned later, they got turned down. Kelley said his party would do everything in its power to let those people cast their ballot.

"Have no doubt," Kelley said, "if people are being denied their constitutional right to exercise their vote, we will [use] all means necessary to ensure that a person who has the constitutional right to vote and wants to exercise it is allowed to do it."

Judge Baker said she still thinks judges have a right to intervene if they feel something's amiss. She won't be using that power this year, however, because her name is on the ballot.

"If [Blunt had] been in St. Louis, I think he would have seen a very different picture," she said.

She says she's not sure whether enough improvements have been made with the polling process to avoid a repeat of 2000.

"We'll find out tomorrow," she said.