State Sen. Denny Hoskins (R-Warrensburg) presides over the Missouri Senate on January 19, 2021 (file photo courtesy of Harrison Sweazea at Senate Communications)
A state senator who represents mid-Missouri’s Cooper and Howard counties in Jefferson City is pushing paper ballots as he seeks the GOP nomination for Secretary of State.
State Sen. Denny Hoskins (R-Warrensburg) spoke at the recent Boone County Lincoln Days. He’s been campaigning across Missouri.
“I believe that the most secure elections in the state of Missouri are in-person with a photo ID paper ballot on election day. And no I don’t trust the machines. I think that we should go back to counting paper ballots and hand-counting those ballots. We’ve seen it work in other states, we’ve seen it work in other towns (and) we’ve seen it work in other countries,” Senator Hoskins says.
Current Missouri law permits the usage of automatic tabulating equipment, electronic voting machines and voting machines in elections. Hoskins has filed Senate Bill 917, which is a 62-page bill that repeals those provisions (except for those with disabilities) and would require ballots to be cast in paper form and hand-counted.
Senator Hoskins faces at least three August GOP primary opponents: former Missouri House Speaker Pro Tem Shane Schoeller (R-Willard), State Rep. Adam Schwadron (R-St. Charles) and Valentina Gomez of St. Louis. State Rep. Barbara Phifer (R-Kirkwood) and two other St. Louis-area Democrats are running as well. Incumbent Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft is running for governor.
Senator Hoskins says his campaign for Missouri Secretary of State is going well.
“Been humbled by the amount of support and the Republican central committees that have come out in support of me and especially my Missouri Freedom Caucus colleagues. You know the campaign has been great: we’ve been working our way across the state,” says Hoskins.
Senator Hoskins is finishing his 16th and final year in the Missouri Legislature, due to term limits. He says small businesses in his district need support, describing small business as the backbone of Missouri.
“That’s the reason I filed the Big Government Get Off My Back Act again this year to say hey no more new rules or regulations on our small businesses. So they can focus on marketing and selling their product, not on more government paperwork. So I’m hopeful that we can get that passed this year and give some relief, especially to our small business owners,” Hoskins says.
Senator Hoskins’ Senate Bill 1072 reauthorizes the “Big Government Get Off My Back Act”. It would require that the state of Missouri not increase any user fees for a five-year period starting this August, unless the fee increase is to implement a federal program administered by the state or is the result of a law passed by the state Legislature.