COUNTY VOTING BEFORE REGISTRATION

Voting was free and easy years ago before registration was required.

Cape Girardeau County voters authorized voter registration in November 1964. The county clerk's office started registering voters in 1965.

Statewide, mandatory registration wasn't required until legislation was signed by then governor Christopher Bond in 1973.

The Missouri secretary of state has registration figures dating back to 1974.

Before 1965, it was easy to vote outside of the Cape Girardeau city limits.

"You just went to the polls and voted," said Betty Hahs, who began working as a deputy county clerk in September 1965 when the office started registering voters.

"I think it was a little hard for people to get used to," said Hahs, who retired in 1992.

The city of Cape Girardeau has had voter registration since the mid-1930s.

But 30 years ago, it was a new concept in the rest of the county.

In 1964, then county clerk Rusby Crites campaigned for countywide registration. He said it was needed to prevent voting fraud.

Crites died in 1992 at the age of 77.

In October 1964, he told the Southeast Missourian that a person could vote more than once in an election and the fraud likely wouldn't be detected.

Fraud could take place in several ways. A person could cast an absentee ballot and then show up on election day and vote again. He or she also could vote in two or more precincts, Crites said.

Poll books were sealed with the ballots when election returns came in and there was no chance to check them until after the votes had been tallied, Crites said.

"Persons using their own name for one vote and perhaps the name of a dead person or non-existent person for another vote make it nearly impossible to detect even with the aid of the poll books," the Southeast Missourian newspaper reported.