Published: Dec. 9, 2025 at 5:33 PM CST
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (KY3) – Missouri’s new congressional map will notgo into effect this week as planned because of a petition drive.
People Not Politicians, the group behind a petition drive, said it turned in more than enough signatures to trigger a statewide vote. Now, workers in the Secretary of State’s Office and county election authorities have to go through nearly 700 boxes containing more than 300,000 signatures to verify if they belong to a registered Missouri voter.
The map was set to go into effect on Thursday, but by turning in petition signatures, People Not Politicians effectively paused it. If the signatures are deemed insufficient, the map will take effect. If the signatures meet the threshold for a ballot referendum, the map will not go into effect unless Missourians approve it at the ballot box.
The congressional map signed by Gov. Mike Kehoe would likely send one more Republican to Washington, D.C. It creates new districts for Missouri’s representation in the U.S. House and carves up the Kansas City area, currently held by Congressman Emanuel Cleaver.
From the time the map was passed in mid-September til now, petitioners had only 90 days to gather hundreds of thousands of signatures. People Not Politicians started to collect signatures immediately for a petition to put the map up for a vote of the people.
The deadline for verifying the signatures is in July. The signatures will have to be certified by someone who is an outspoken supporter of the new map, Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins.
“[I’ll be] making sure that we’re going through the process and making sure that we follow state law. Making sure that the signatures are verified,” Hoskins said.
Hoskins first rejected the petition because the governor had not yet signed the new map into law. Once Hoskins approved a version of the petition for circulation, he said he would reject any signatures collected before that. At that point, People Not Politicians had already collected 92,000 of the more than 100,000 signatures needed to place the petition before voters.
But People Not Politicians, led by Richard von Glahn, turned in over 300,000 signatures Tuesday morning.
“Even if we like one political party more than the other, the process matters more to us, and I think that’s an important message that should be heard across this entire country,” von Glahn said.
Elizabeth Franklin was one of the Missourians who gathered these signatures. She said rural Missourians were especially impassioned to sign.
“By signing it, they also understood that they didn’t approve or deny new maps, that would just allow us the opportunity to vote on it,” Franklin said.A federal challenge filed by Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway against People Not Politicians was thrown out by a judge on Monday. In a written statement, the Attorney General’s Office implies the lawsuit could be refiled after signatures are counted.
“The Attorney General looks forward to an orderly review process to determine whether the proposed referendum can qualify for a vote. Nothing in the Court’s holding prevents the State from re-filing its suit if and when the proposed referendum qualifies for a vote,” the statement reads.
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