Missouri AG defends voter ID law amid lawsuits over gambling machine crackdown

Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway is defending the state's voter ID law as a federal legal challenge to Indiana's similar statute moves forward.

Hanaway said she has taken a legal interest in the Indiana case because a federal challenge to another state's voter ID law poses a direct threat to Missouri's own statute, recently upheld as constitutional by the Missouri Supreme Court.

"In Missouri, we finally have a voter ID law that the Missouri Supreme Court has said is constitutional and we want to make sure that that continues to spread throughout the country," she said. 

Asked whether the lawsuit was more about states' authority or fraud prevention, Hanaway said both mattered equally, adding she wouldn't say one takes precedence over the other. 

The Missouri Supreme Court's ruling followed a challenge from the NAACP, which argued the law prevents too many people from voting due to disabilities or clerical issues obtaining an ID.

While also facing two lawsuits over her office's crackdown on slot-style game machines at bars and gas stations, Hanaway addressed both matters in an interview with Gray Media's Missouri Capitol Bureau.

On the gambling machines, two lawsuits accuse Hanaway's office of using threats of prosecution and license pressure to force businesses to shut down the machines without giving them a chance to defend themselves. 

Hanaway said the machines are illegal under Missouri law because players can't influence the outcome. "If you go and you play this machine and you can't affect the outcome, then it's a game of chance and it's illegal in Missouri."