A lawsuit is seeking to strike down a proposed constitutional amendment allowing a photo identification mandate for Missouri voters.

An attorney backing the lawsuit told The Associated Press Thursday that it contends the ballot summary approved by legislators is misleading and asks a judge to block the measure from the 2012 ballot.

Online court records (number 11AC-CC00439) show the lawsuit was filed Wednesday in Cole County Circuit Court.

The Republican-led Legislature earlier this year passed a proposed constitutional amendment that would allow a photo ID mandate and set parameters for a potential early voting period. If voters adopt the amendment, a separate law still would be needed to implement the provisions – and a recent veto from Mo. Gov. Jay Nixon would also hinder the law’s progress.

The proposed amendment seeks to get around a 2006 state Supreme Court ruling that declared a previous photo ID law unconstitutional.

The voter ID laws popping up around the country under the guise of “preventing voter fraud” are part and parcel of the right’s longstanding belief that not everybody should have the right to vote — not because certain people are better than others — although there seems to be an element of racism involved, as E.J. Dionne explains — not because vote fraud is a problem – it isn’t — but because they understand that as the voting populace goes down their chances of maintaining power goes up. We know this because Paul Weyrich, one of the founding members of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the ultra-conservative think tank where these ideas originate, came right out and said so in 1980.

Now many of our Christians have what I call the goo-goo syndrome — good government. They want everybody to vote. I don’t want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people, they never have been from the beginning of our country and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.

The voter ID mandate is another chilling reminder of just how effective the extreme right has been in moving Weyrich’s voter suppression agenda forward. Hopefully this court challenge will put an end to it in Missouri.