Court says no to voter I.D.; poll worker demands one anyway

Poll worker demands a photo I.D. from the secretary of state anyway. So what's happening to everybody else?

Published November 7, 2006 2:25PM (EST)

In Missouri last month, the state's Supreme Court struck down a GOP-backed measure that would have required residents to show a photo I.D. before voting. Democratic Secretary of State Robin Carnahan is worried that poll workers may be enforcing the I.D. requirement anyway. Why? Because when she went to turn in her absentee ballot Friday, a poll worker repeatedly demanded to see her photo I.D.

"To have that experience personally was very troubling, Carnahan says.

The secretary of state was ultimately able to persuade the poll worker to let her vote without an I.D. According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, St. Louis elections director Scott Leiendecker, a Republican, says Carnahan is making much ado over very little and that the incident was simply a mistake by a temporary worker. That's not exactly reassuring; we assume that in Missouri, as in the rest of the country, the vast majority of the people staffing the polls today are also temporary workers.


By Tim Grieve

Tim Grieve is a senior writer and the author of Salon's War Room blog.

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