ST. LOUIS — Early voting is underway in Missouri, and thousands of people have already cast their ballot.
In St. Louis County 16,908 people cast their ballot, and in St. Louis City, they had 3,659 people vote early on Wednesday.
One of the measures people are voting on is Amendment 7. It would change some of the language regarding U.S. citizens and voting in Missouri's constitution and would also ban ranked-choice voting in places that don't already have it.
Missouri Amendment 7 is a proposed constitutional amendment recommended by the state legislature that, if passed by voters, would change the state constitution to say, "Only citizens of the United States are entitled to vote at all elections by the people." Currently, Missouri's constitution says, "All citizens of the United States."
Becky Arps,with Americans for Citizen Voting supports the amendment.
“Our state constitution protects the rights of United States citizens," Arps said. "It does not say that we can't allow other people to vote. Our state statute protects the rights of U.S. citizens, doesn't say that you can't give that right to somebody else. And so by doing this, we're making sure that it's solid."
The Republican nominee for Secretary of State, State Sen. Denny Hoskins said other states have identified issues.
“The state of Texas, they just audited their voter rolls and found one million ineligible voters on their voter rolls, including 6,500 noncitizens,” Hoskins said.
The Democratic nominee for Missouri Attorney General, Elad Gross said he believes the amendment is unnecessary.
“Maybe some other states have a problem. We in Missouri do not, and our local election authorities are pretty darn good,” Gross said.
Larry Bradley with Better Ballot KC opposes the amendment.
“They're trying to scare you," Bradley said. "You already have that noncitizens cannot vote. I'm not in favor of noncitizens voting, but they're trying to scare you. They're trying to make you look at that item. I said, ‘Oh, yeah, I'm in favor of that.’ And then you look down at the other two items that are about ranked-choice voting."
Amendment 7 would also ban ranked-choice voting in places that have not already adopted it.
St. Louis already allows approval voting for municipal elections. For example, if you like candidate a the most but also like candidates B and C, you can list all three, and all votes will carry the same weight.
“If you read the language on Amendment 7, they say that a plurality winner is okay. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. We need majority winners. And this process, this ballot won't give it to us. Ranked-choice voting will,” Bradley said.
Arps said she questions if there would actually be a true majority with ranked-choice voting.
“I don't know that it's necessarily true majority, and I don't know that people will feel that their vote necessarily counts, and I don't think they're going to understand,” Arps said.
You can read the full ballot language here.
You can track St. Louis County voting wait times here.