“I couldn’t even tell you who the candidates are, I don’t know, but there’s obviously a problem,” said Sen. Robert Dixon, R-Springfield.

Sponsoring Sen. Will Kraus, R-Lee's Summit, maintained the bill was a common sense measure that would prevent impersonation at the polls, encouraging his colleagues to vote for an override after seeing “these injustices happening in our election cycle.”

Democrats fought against that argument. Sen. Maria Chappelle-Nadal, a University City Democrat, lamented Republicans who will use the incident to campaign for voter ID through commercials and fliers in rural and conservative areas.

“It is not accurate for you to say to this body that having a photo ID would have eliminated the issue of absentee voter fraud,” she said to Kraus. “(This bill) is not solving anything whatsoever. Not anything. … This bill, in my belief, is a definite step backwards. What we should be promoting is inclusion and activism for all people.”

Sen. Jamilah Nasheed of St. Louis also slammed Kraus for not reading the judge’s ruling in the 78th District case, though he pointed to new election this Friday while pushing for the legislation.

“The real fraud is this bill itself,” Nasheed said.