MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
Let's get some more details about how this is affecting preparations for the midterms in Missouri from somebody who actually has to do it. Brianna Lennon is responsible for running elections as the Boone County clerk. Boone County includes Columbia and the surrounding area. She's an elected Democrat, and she's with us now. Good morning, Ms. Lennon.
BRIANNA LENNON: Good morning.
MARTIN: So what's this been like for you, trying to get ballots ready for November? Is all this back-and-forth changing what you'd normally be doing right now?
LENNON: Yeah. It's been incredibly problematic, partly because we have a statute in Missouri that prevents changes to the ballots to be made after eight weeks before the election, and that date was on Tuesday. So that was a requirement that the county clerks and election officials in Missouri had asked for years and years ago and successfully gotten a statute to avoid problems like this.
And since this is now a federal case and we have just conflicts between the state and the federal levels, I'm not really sure that eight-week deadline applies anymore, and that has thrown us into a holding pattern. So while we can still do things like train our poll workers and make sure that we have our voter registration and our education ready to go, we can't do anything to print ballots yet.
MARTIN: So what's your deadline for having an answer from the courts? I'm wondering, like, what's your kind of - forgive me for using this term, but drop-dead date by which you have to send ballots out, particularly for people who are serving in the military or who are living overseas?
LENNON: Right. Our military and overseas voters are our first deadline - they're the first voters that get ballots in this election - and that is on September 18. So at that point, we need to have at least a PDF or some sort of electronic version of the ballot that we can send to those voters because most of those voters need it to be emailed. But obviously, we'd like to have much earlier to be able to proof the ballots and make sure that everything is ready to go.
And I would hate for us to have a situation that I know other states have had where people that vote absentee at the beginning of the absentee voting period have the ballot change, and then there's a different ballot in place if you vote later in the absentee period. And we have avoided that for years in Missouri and hope to avoid it this year, as well.
MARTIN: Well, that was going to be my question. If the courts don't give you an answer by that date, what happens?
LENNON: I mean, we are still bound by federal and state law to adhere to those deadlines. So we will be sending a ballot to the military and overseas voters on the 18th, and absentee voting will start for all of our other voters on September 22. So at some point, we will have to make a call as local election authorities in the state which ballot we're going to use. And hopefully by this week, I hope, we will have some clarity from the courts.
MARTIN: Do you have a preference for which map gets used - I mean, the 2022 map that was made during the usual post-census redistricting process or the 2025 map drawn by Republicans as part of this redistricting fight that the president started?
LENNON: No. I think at this point, what the biggest issue has been throughout this process, and truly for redistricting at the local election official level, has started way back in September of 2025 when the Legislature was called into special session to pass this map. We as local election officials had warned the Missouri Legislature, the Missouri secretary of state's office that a rushed redistricting process was going to have an impact on, ultimately, the August primary and the November election if it wasn't done properly and quickly.
And I think that's what we've seen happen. In May, we were warning folks that this was going to be an issue if we didn't have a decisive decision on the referendum that was going to go on the ballot. And instead, all of the statutory deadlines in Missouri law were really pushed to the limit. All the time that was allowed under the law was taken by the Missouri secretary of state's office, and that has caused this issue.
So at this point, I don't think any of us have an issue about either of the maps. We don't really care which one gets used, but we need to know which one to use.
MARTIN: But you can see where people might say, well, you know, the secretary of state is Republican, so of course he wants to use the 2025 map that's more favorable to Republicans. You're a Democrat, so of course you want to use the 2022 map, because that's - 'cause you're a Democrat. And if people think that, what would you say?
LENNON: I would say we have already been here in the August primary. This was a question that we all had to answer for ourselves during August when we knew that there was the potential for confusion. There was a debate in May about whether we should be using the new maps or the old maps because of the impending referendum decision. And unanimously across the state, local election officials, Republican and Democrat, chose to use the new maps, just like the secretary of state's office had wanted us to. And that's exactly why we're in the position that we are. So we've used the new maps before, and voters have seen them. And now the question that we need answers is what we need to use for November.
MARTIN: That's Brianna Lennon. She's the clerk of Boone County, Missouri - the elections clerk. So thank you so much for talking with us. Good luck.
LENNON: Thank you.
MARTIN: I do want to mention - we invited Missouri's Republican secretary of state, Denny Hoskins, to appear on the program. We have not yet heard back. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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