Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft has launched an effort to educate voters about Missouri's new voter identification law.
The law, approved by nearly two-thirds of voters in November, doesn't take effect until June. Voters in municipal elections on Tuesday and on April 4 are not subject to the new law.
Speaking at a news conference Today at St. Louis City Hall, Ashcroft, a Republican, says he wants to make sure that all eligible voters can cast a ballot. He called Missouri's law a model for other states because it contains provisions that allow voting even without a photo ID.
But opponents claim that the voter ID law is a thinly-disguised way of suppressing votes in poor and minority areas that tend to be largely Democratic.