Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft came to Worth County to talk to students at the school and to promote the voter-approved Voter ID Law that his office is tasked with administering. He visited the Courthouse along with the School. He was accompanied by Second District State Representative J. Eggleston along with First District State Representative Allen Andrews. Ashcroft said that it was not about whether he won, but whether the people of Missouri won. “It’s all about restoring integrity to the electoral process,” he said. He said that “if you’re registered, you can vote” and that under the old law, some people were being turned away.
The Missouri Secretary of State is charged with administering elections and handling corporate registrations. They also administer the records and archives for the state. If the name sounds familiar to people, he is the son of John Ashcroft, who served as governor, senator, and George W. Bush’s attorney general. He said that he sees his role as a facilitator. “If you have a problem and you don’t know who to call, give our office a call and we’ll direct you to the right office,” he said.
Ashcroft has been touring the state collecting feedback from citizens. “I can never know everything you know,” he said. “You know how to run your own lives; we don’t. It’s not about getting the Republicans or Democrats in charge; it’s about good government.”
The Voter ID law requires voters to prove citizenship in order to vote in the State of Missouri. As part of the law, Ashcroft said his office was in the process of figuring out who was eligible to vote and who wasn’t. “I don’t live here, so I can’t vote here,” said Ashcroft. “That way, my vote won’t be canceled out by someone who can’t vote here.” He said that several people had already been prosecuted for vote fraud recently.
For instance, in 2015, a woman was prosecuted for voting twice in an election in Greene County according to the Missouri Times. In 2010, according to Ballotpedia, there was a case where there were 24 different voting discrepancies during a Jackson County House primary election, which was won by one of the contestants by one vote. One voter allegedly lived outside the district, but was a contributor to the winning candidate and who voted in the district. Two voters had a residence that was abandoned and boarded up. Three voters admitted to KCTV that they were residents outside the county, but were related to the winning candidate.
Ashcroft said there was no reporting mechanism at the statewide level to see how widespread fraud was, but that his office was setting up such a reporting mechanism. Normally, he said his office gets involved when local prosecutors call in asking for help in a fraud case.
On the other hand, Ashcroft said he was impressed with the dedication of some of Missouri’s poll workers. For instance, there was a tornado in McDonald County in April of this year during the municipal elections. The poll workers took shelter between 6 and 6:30 that day, then came back to reopen the polling station in case one more person wanted to vote before the polls closed at 7 pm. “If one person is turned away when they are legally entitled to vote, it’s a great wrong,” he said.
Ashcroft took a tour of the school, including the Partnership Library. He said he was impressed at the level of partnership that went into building the facility. “Somehow, we’ve divorced our libraries from education,” he said. “We need them to be places where anyone with the mental and physical capacity to learn can do so.” He said he was impressed with the football team as well. “You didn’t get here without hard work,” he told the football players. “It’s all paid off, and I love how you’ve brought this whole community together.” He also gave a brief talk to Karen Andrews’ eighth grade Social Studies class. They were working on heroes and traitors, selecting a major American historical figure and deciding whether they were a hero or a traitor to the country.
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