Which Missouri congressional map? The clock is ticking

Good morning,

Missouri’s congressional map has now bounced between the state Supreme Court, a U.S. Supreme Court justice, a federal district judge and a federal appeals panel, and the net result is that the people who actually have to print the ballots still don’t know what to put on them.

For now, election officials are responding to this abundance of judicial guidance by doing as little as possible.

St. Louis County has paused work on congressional ballots. St. Charles County is preparing everything except congressional races. Boone County is lining up poll workers and polling places but waiting to build ballots.

That can’t last. Military and overseas ballots have to go out by Sept. 19.

Once somebody with a robe settles this, local officials can flip a switch and use the right map. Every Missouri voter is currently tied to both districts in the state database at once. The switch exists. The legal authority to throw it is the part nobody can agree on.

And it may not be fast enough. Boone County Clerk Brianna Lennon told KBIA that if someone votes under one map and a later ruling puts them in a different district, part of that ballot could be invalidated. Missouri law doesn't give them another shot.

So while Secretary of State Denny Hoskins fights a contempt hearing and lawyers make yet another trip to Justice Brett Kavanaugh, a fight that has mostly been about competing courts and competing legal theories is colliding with an election calendar that doesn’t care about either.

The judicial system is built for second thoughts. This week alone has produced stay requests, appeals and two emergency applications to the same justice.

Voters only get one ballot.