St. Charles County judge rejects lawsuit to halt early voting

ST. CHARLES COUNTY, Mo. (First Alert 4) – A St. A Charles County judge dismissed a lawsuit aimed at stopping early voting.

earlier this weekSt. Travis Heins of Peters, St. filed a petition against St. Charles County Elections Director Kurt Bahr. In the petition, Heins argues that he should be able to participate as a poll watcher during the early voting period because votes will be tabulated as voters place their ballots in the tabulating machine.

State statute allows both parties to designate poll watchers at polling places on election day. For absentee voting, poll watchers and challengers are allowed at locations where ballots are being counted, such as at the election authority.

“There are 5,000, 10,000 people voting there every day, and we’re not applying the same transparency and the same security to those votes and voters,” Heins said.

However, St. St. Charles County Elections Director Kurt Bahr said his interpretation of the law only requires poll watchers Open Election Day.

“We need to have the same level of security every day we vote, that’s all we want,” he said. “It’s not like that, one day is weaker than the other.”

Bahr also said that as voters placed their ballots into the tabulating machines, the votes were counted but not counted. He said the machines were turned off after the polls closed on election night. At this point, ballots are counted, tabulated, and the information is transmitted to the election authority along with the paper ballots.

This week, Bahr told First Alert 4 he would comply with the judge’s decision and wanted the decision to be left up to the court.

“{Kurt Bahr} if we had done this for the Republican party, St. What would the Democrats in Charles County do, he wondered, what about us? So he was appealing to the judge to tell us what to do,” St. Charles County spokesman Kevin Killeen.

On Friday, the judge dismissed the case due to procedural error, stating that he did not meet the requirements to file the lawsuit.

St. Charles County Democratic Committee Chairman Donald Looney was present at Friday’s hearing.

“We need people to always pay attention to what’s going on,” he said. “This is through our process with the election authority or St. Does that mean I’m interested in our elections in Charles County? Like hell. Like hell.”

Early voting takes place Saturday and Monday in St. It will continue ahead of Election Day in Charles County.

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