Don’t call it early voting. This is a “no excuse absentee” vote.

Whatever it’s called, it’s clearly popular in Missouri. Late Tuesday morning, more than 100,000 St. Louis County voters had voted. That represents nearly 20% of the total votes cast in the county in the 2020 presidential race.

Across the Missouri River in St. Charles County, the story is the same.

St. Charles, second in total 2020 polling after St. Louis County among Missouri’s 116 voting jurisdictions, had more than 35,000 votes cast as of close of business Monday, said Kurt Bahr, county elections director .

Bahr works two locations for no-excuse postal voting.

Missouri law allows two weeks for no-excuse absentee voting adopted in 2022. This was included in a bill that also made it mandatory to use a government-issued ID to vote.

The two weeks of early voting were the price Senate Democrats got for allowing the bill to come up for a vote.

Some of the first votes in St. Charles County’s count are traditional mail-in ballots, intended for people who will be out of town or physically unable to get to the polls on Nov. 5, Bahr said. But the vast majority are people taking advantage of the new law to vote while all state election authorities are open for in-person voting.

“If I do another 5,000 today, which we probably will, between my office and the satellite site, we will exceed the number of voters who voted in the entire April election,” Bahr said.

In Greene County, which had the fourth highest voting in 2020, about 2,500 people voted each day last week, increasing to 3,000 on Monday, Clerk Shane Schoeller said.

“I anticipate that at the end of the no-excuse absentee voting period, we will reach a turnout rate between 20 and 25 percent,” Schoeller said.

And in Boone County, which placed ninth in 2020 with 91,130 votes cast for president, the number of people who have already voted is closing in on 2020’s total of 14,000 absentee votes, when the COVID-19 pandemic 19 led a large number of people to vote. -option by mail.

Boone County Clerk Brianna Lennon said 2,000 people voted Saturday at polling places located in a centrally located shopping center and park. This weekend, she will take mobile polls to Ashland and Centralia, the county’s two largest communities outside of Columbia.

“It’s increasing every day,” Lennon said.

And in smaller jurisdictions, participation is just as strong. Cape Girardeau County in southeastern Missouri recorded 1,400 ballots in the first two days of no-excuse absentee voting, Clerk Kara Clark Summers said last week.

“There are lines of people voting,” she said Thursday. “I was here until 7:30 last night.”

While St. Louis County is the only election jurisdiction among the top 10 to release turnout numbers on its website, media outlets across the state are reporting long queues and many people are waiting 45 minutes or one hour vote in many clerk’s offices.

But the delays don’t seem to deter anyone, Bahr said. There are parking problems at its central location and it can take up to half an hour or more to find a parking space. He runs a shuttle from the parking lot of a nearby church to ease traffic.

People show up in pairs or trios and are generally in a good mood, he said.

“Early voting tends to be a little more of a social event for voters,” Bahr said.

A traditional absentee ballot is conducted because a person will be out of town or physically unable to get to the polls on Election Day. Liberal groups nationwide have advocated early voting as a way to increase turnout, while conservatives generally oppose it, saying it increases the chance of problems in elections.

The first election in which the no-excuse early voting option was available in Missouri took place in November 2022.

This is the first presidential election using the new law, and Lennon said she thinks part of the increase is due to word of mouth from people who have already voted.

“It’s just people realizing we now have a choice,” she said. “But a lot of them, too, are just people who are worried about not being able to get to the polls on Election Day. They don’t want to have to worry about ‘what if an emergency happens'”

Kathy Ritter, a retired educator who voted Tuesday at the Boone County Government Center in Columbia, said she loved having the opportunity to show up and vote at any time of the day.

“It’s a wonderful amenity for our community,” she said. “The line was long, but it went quickly.”

Missouri employers are required by law to give workers three hours off to vote on Election Day, but only if the employee requests it in advance and does not have three hours off work while polling stations are open.

“You just need to have the opportunity to vote a few days before the day itself, because on that day, especially for people who are working, it can be difficult to make time to vote,” Ritter said.

The connections between early voting and the voter ID law are not just that they were included in the same bill. As a price for including it, Republicans demanded legislation that would end no-excuse mail voting if the ID provisions were thrown out by the courts.

Missouri Republicans have repeatedly passed a so-called photo ID law, and voters agreed to enshrine it in the state constitution in 2016, but the law has never been passed. withstood a legal challenge.

Missouri voter ID trial digs deeper into goal, results of tough 2022 law

The new law is subject to judicial review and the decision could be made at any time. On Oct. 21, Circuit Judge Jon Beetem heard final arguments in a challenge filed in 2022 and took the case under advisement.

The lawsuit focuses on the difficulties three people faced in obtaining state-issued identification. Problems include finding transportation to a state licensing office, misspelling important documents, or missing those documents entirely due to age.

To be eligible to vote, the ID must be Missouri or federally issued with a photo, date of birth and expiration date. ID that has expired since the last general election is also acceptable.

A voter who does not have one of these identification documents can vote provisionally. For this ballot to be counted, the voter must return to the polling location and show acceptable identification or trust that the signature on the ballot is considered a valid match to their signature on file.

Before the law took effect in 2022, a voter could also use a out-of-state driver’s license or an ID card, student ID, voter registration card issued by the local election authority, or a recent bank statement or utility bill mailed to them to their registered address.

If Beetem rules against the law, some will demand that it be re-enacted without reservation, said Bahr, a former state representative.

“There would be an outcry because most voters, Republicans, Democrats and general, like that accessibility to their ballot box and like the convenience of not having to worry about a single day,” Bahr said.

Schoeller, who also served in the Legislature, said he, too, believes people will push for the law to be re-enacted if the courts strike down the ID law.

“I have always been a supporter of it, especially since I became an electoral authority and we realize that when you focus all your problems on election day, it creates many challenges for voters “, he said.

The popularity of early voting does not appear to be partisan. St. Louis County voted 61% for Joe Biden in 2020 and St. Charles County voted 58% for Trump. Boone County

Election officials like it as much, if not more, than voters, Bahr said.

“First, we like people to vote. We love helping people,” Bahr said. “And secondly, if it all happens in one day, you know, there’s always that fear of ‘what happens if something goes wrong.’ But if we can manage the problems as early as possible, we will be able to resolve them over a period of time. »

There will be no delay in releasing election results to the public due to early voting, Bahr and Lennon said.

It usually takes his office about an hour after polls close to release absentee results and that won’t change, Lennon said.

The increase in early voting could indicate a big increase in overall turnout, but election officials don’t anticipate much change from four years ago.

There are high-profile ballot measures for abortion rights and sports betting this year, but the only statewide election campaign where significant money was spent on advertising is the U.S. Senate.

About 70% of Missouri’s registered voters cast ballots in the 2020 election, and that’s Secretary of State Jay Ashcrorft’s estimate for this year, spokesperson JoDonn Chaney said.

This is also Lennon’s estimate for Boone County. The early voting period changes when people vote, but she doesn’t expect that to lead to a big increase in turnout.

“I’m sticking to 70,” she said. “It was 70% in 2020, so I feel pretty confident.”

Bahr said he anticipates a 75% turnout in St. Charles County, about the same as 2020.

For Ritter, voting in Boone County, the urge to vote right away was overwhelming.

“I was so excited and motivated to vote that I couldn’t wait until November 5 to do it,” she said.

She wants civility in politics, she said, and that’s what she voted for.

“I’m looking for some common sense in politics, and I just felt like my little voice could be heard,” Ritter said. “And if it could be heard, I’m going to broadcast it today.”