The city of St. Louis has filed a lawsuit that would allow voters a two-week period leading up to Election Day to cast a ballot.

The suit is driven by the fiasco that presented itself to voters in the Gateway City in 2000.

If successful, the lawsuit would create a two-week window before Election Day in which any Missouri voter could cast a ballot. This would differ from absentee balloting, which requires a voter to provide a reason for casting an early ballot.

If a judge sides with the city, early voting would work this way:

St. Louis and all counties in Missouri would set up at least one polling center where votes could be cast starting Oct. 19, fourteen days before Election Day.

That location, and up to four others, would be open on business days for those two weeks and, at the option of local officials, on weekends as well.

Early voting, in some form, exists in more than half of the states. It's sometimes called "No Excuses Absentee" because, like absentee voting, it is done before Election Day.

The city's Election Board came under federal oversight after the 2000 election, in which voters were turned away from the polls because election workers could not verify their eligibility.

Missouri is again one of a handful of swing states that are expected to be key in deciding a close race. Slay is a co-chairman of Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry's national finance committee. Blunt, a Republican, is running for governor.

"This is about protecting people's access to the ballots," said U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay Jr., D-St. Louis. Clay joined the city as a plaintiff in the suit.

Also signed on as plaintiffs are Democrats Craig Hosmer, a former state representative from Springfield, Mo.; state Rep. Wes Shoemyer, of Clarence, Mo.; and Ernestine Hill, a committeewoman in St. Louis. The lawsuit was filed in Cole County Circuit Court.

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