Mid-Missouri voters might not know their congressional district until after April election

COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)

The Secretary of State's Office backs the claim that the "Missouri First" map is in effect, but the Boone County clerk said Friday she can't change district lines for voters until after the April election.

"Right now in the voter registration system that's maintained by the Secretary of State's Office, there's not actually an option for us to assign people to the new congressional districts," County Clerk Brianna Lennon said. "So, we can't do anything."

The county clerk's office oversees elections, including determining in which district a voter resides. But Missouri's congressional district lines are at the center of a legal battle, Lennon said. Voters are still in the 2022 districts at least until after the April election.

Meanwhile, filing for the seats begins on Tuesday.

The Republican-dominated General Assembly last year approved a new congressional map that would effectively eliminate a safely Democratic seat in Kansas City. The map was immediately challenged in court.

Congressional maps are usually drawn every 10 years after the census, but Republicans and Democrats alike have pushed mid-decade redistricting to gain an advantage in the 2026 midterms and 2028 general elections.

A referendum backed by the group People Not Politicians is trying to get the 2025 map on the November ballot, but there's also debate on whether the referendum freezes the map's implementation until after the November election.

Lennon said her office has received a lot of questions from people wondering what district they're in, and created an interactive map to outline the two different districts.

The lower half of the county is in and will stay in U.S. House District 3, which is represented by Bob Onder (R-Augusta). The upper half of the county changes based on the map.

In the 2022 map, the county is roughly split along Interstate 70 and is in Republican Rep. Mark Alford's District 4. The 2025 map splits the county above I-70, putting much of the northern, rural part of the county in District 5, which would stretch into Kansas City.

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