Election officials proceeding despite uncertainty over tobacco tax

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- The Nov. 7 election is only about a month away, and election officials still don't know for sure if a tobacco tax increase will be on the ballot. But at this late date, they're proceeding anyway.

By law, absentee ballots had to be available by Sept. 26. A judge ordered the tobacco tax proposal onto the ballot Sept. 11, but the Supreme Court heard an appeal Wednesday and has yet to make a decision.

If the court tosses the measure from the ballot, election officials will have to figure out how to proceed, and they hope the court would offer some guidance.

"It would be a mess if the high court didn't give some administrative instruction," said Greene County Clerk Richard Struckhoff.

He and others say it's too late to reprint ballots.

In the past, they could have marked through the issue or covered it with a sticker. But several election officials say that the use of optical-scan counting machines, rather than the old punch-card system, means a sticker or extra marks would mess up electronic counting.

"You can't just throw a label to cover something up or make marks in these ballots where there are not supposed to be marks," Struckhoff said.

That whittles the options, so election officials would probably just leave the tobacco tax increase on the ballot and not count the results, said Wright County Clerk Tony Dugger, president of the Missouri Association of County Clerks.

Dugger said his county's ballots will have the tax increase on them.

"We are proceeding with them on the ballot," he said. And if the Supreme Court rules otherwise, "it'll just go right on through the machine and we'll just ignore the results."

Dugger said most election officials are following that procedure.

Officials could place signs at polling sites telling people to ignore that ballot item to lessen voter confusion.

"There is a point where you just have to go on," Maries County Clerk Rhonda Brewer said. "It's not something we can wait for forever."

Those using electronic voting machines, such as touch screens, could probably reprogram them up to the last minute to remove the issue if needed, secretary of state spokeswoman Stacie Temple said.

With a plan in place and ballots printed, Dugger said, how quickly the court issues a ruling isn't that important now. A bigger issue is whether the court will reinstate a law requiring people to show a government-issued photo identification at the polls, as poll-worker training generally occurs in October. A lower court tossed out that law in September as an unconstitutional infringement on the right to vote.

"The only thing we're really going to be pushed for is the photo ID, as we're waiting to train our election judges on what that's going to be," he said.

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State Elections Information: http://www.sos.mo.gov/elections