Missouri election chief rejects bid to hold public vote on Trump-backed congressional districts

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri's top election official has rejected a citizens' petition seeking a statewide referendum on new congressional districts backed by President Donald Trump.

Supporters of the referendum had submitted hundreds of thousands of petition signatures in a bid to force a November election on a new U.S. House map approved by the Republican-led state Legislature. But Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins asserted Tuesday that the petition is void because congressional redistricting plans cannot be subject to voter referendums.

The number of petition signatures submitted doesn't matter, Hoskins said, because “challenging a congressional map is unconstitutional under Missouri law.”

A group backing the referendum effort said it will contest Hoskins' decision in court.

“Secretary of State Hoskins is making a last desperate attempt to silence the people’s voice in Missouri," Richard von Glahn, executive director of People Not Politicians Missouri, said in a statement, while asserting there are more than enough signatures to qualify the referendum for the ballot.

Missouri was the second Republican-led state, after Texas, to respond to Trump's call last year to redraw congressional districts to the GOP's advantage in hopes of holding on to the party's slim House majority in the midterm elections.

The new map, which is being used in Tuesday's primaries, dramatically reshapes the Kansas City-based 5th Congressional District, held by longtime Democratic Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, by stretching it into rural central Missouri to give it a Republican tilt. Republicans already hold six of Missouri's eight congressional seats and hope to gain another under the new map.

Hoskins also rejected a potential November ballot measure seeking to fortify the initiative process.

The proposed amendment would bar the Legislature from making it harder to qualify citizen initiatives for the ballot or approve them at an election. It also would make it harder for the Legislature to reverse or amend voter-approved initiatives by requiring an 80% vote in both the House and Senate, instead of the current simple majority.

Although supporters had submitted thousands of signatures, Hoskins asserted that the petition violated a constitutional prohibition against rolling multiple subjects and sections of the constitution into a single amendment.

For both the redistricting referendum and the citizen initiative measure, Hoskins released opinions from Republican Attorney General Catherine Hanaway laying out the rational for his decisions.

People Not Politicians, the group sponsoring the referendum drive, submitted more than 300,000 signatures to the secretary of state's office in December. Local election officials reviewed the signatures' validity over the ensuing months and approved well more than the roughly 111,000 needed to qualify for the ballot.

But Hoskins waited until the last day allowed under state law to announce his decision about the referendum — a move that let the new districts be used in the meantime.

Hoskins had long signaled that he was likely to reject the referendum. He asked a federal court last fall to block the referendum petition from being submitted, arguing that congressional redistricting is not subject to a referendum under the U.S. and Missouri constitutions. A judge dismissed the lawsuit as premature, noting in a December ruling that Hoskins had the authority to reject the petition himself if he thought it was unconstitutional.

When Missouri candidates began filing for office in February, Hoskins said they were doing so under the new districts and told The Associated Press that “the referendum process was never meant to be used for redistricting.”

If Hoskins is wrong, and a court orders him to place the redistricting referendum on the ballot, it's unclear what that means for the 2026 elections. Would candidates who win Tuesday's primaries be allowed to continue running under the new districts in November while voters simultaneously decide whether those districts can be used in future elections? Would candidates run in different districts for the general election than were used in the primaries? Or would courts order a do-over for the congressional primaries using the state’s prior congressional districts?

Missouri's mid-decade redistricting effort already has been among the most litigated nationally, triggering about a dozen lawsuits over the past year.

Legislative voting districts typically are redrawn at the start of each decade, immediately after a census. But Trump's call for Republicans to redraw districts to their advantage led to an unusual outbreak of mid-decade mapmaking. The redistricting effort gained additional steam when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a majority Black congressional district in Louisiana in late April, prompting Republicans in several Southern states to also redraw districts that had large minority populations.

All told, Republicans think they could win as many as 16 additional seats from new House maps enacted in eight states — Texas, Missouri, North Carolina, Ohio, Florida, Tennessee, Louisiana and Alabama. Democrats, whose counterattack faced several setbacks, think they could win up to six additional seats from new districts in California and Utah.

Voters ultimately will determine whether the new districts perform as intended. Even with redistricting, Republicans are facing headwinds. The president's party historically has lost congressional seats in the midterms, and Trump’s poor approval ratings could provide an extra hurdle for Republican candidates.

Nearly 145 million people — about two of every five U.S. residents — live in states with new congressional districts for this election. Additional states are considering redistricting before the 2028 elections. Maryland lawmakers voted Tuesday to place an amendment on November’s ballot that could pave the way for mid-decade redistricting.

Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins talks to reporters Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2026, at his office in the state Capitol in Jefferson City, Mo. (AP Photo/David A. Lieb)

FILE - A person holds a sign opposing the new U.S. House districts passed by the Missouri General Assembly during a protest outside the state Capitol, in Jefferson City, Mo., March 10, 2026. (AP Photo/David A. Lieb, File)

FILE - Protesters against a Missouri congressional redistricting plan gather outside the Missouri Capitol on May 12, 2026, in Jefferson City, Mo. (AP Photo/David A. Lieb, File)

Denny Hoskins, Missouri's secretary of state, speaks to reporters at a campaign event on Nov. 4, 2024, inside a building at the Jefferson City Memorial Airport in Missouri. (AP Photo/David A. Lieb)

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Hundreds of mourners dressed mostly in white walked through central Kyiv on Tuesday behind the open casket of a university student killed at the weekend by a Russian strike as she helped people wounded in an earlier attack.

The farewell for 20-year-old Vitalina Yarovenko began inside St. Michael’s golden-domed Cathedral, where clergy read prayers over the casket and relatives and friends approached her body to say goodbye.

Her family said they had asked mourners to wear white or traditional Ukrainian embroidered shirts instead of black, so that Vitalina “would not feel too sad.”

Although Yarovenko was a civilian, her mother asked that she be given the kind of funeral procession used in Ukraine to honor fallen soldiers. Several hundred people followed her casket from the cathedral downhill toward Independence Square.

Traffic stopped for several minutes to allow the procession pass. Drivers stepped out of their cars and stood silently. Some knelt on one knee, while others placed a hand over their heart.

Yarovenko, a fourth-year psychology student at the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, had been an instructor at a military training school affiliated with the university.

In July, she began volunteering with the Hospitallers, a Ukrainian medical organization which is mostly focused on delivering frontline medical aid and whose teams travel to the sites of Russian attacks to treat and evacuate the wounded.

Early Saturday, Yarovenko rushed to the scene of a Russian missile strike that hit Kyiv’s Darnytskyi district. As she and other volunteers were at the scene, another strike hit the same location, according to her relatives and friends.

Ukrainian officials have previously accused Russia of targeting rescue workers by hitting residential buildings with two consecutive missiles — the first one to draw crews to the scene and the second one to wound or kill them. The tactic is called a “double tap” in military jargon.

At Independence Square, the crowd observed a minute of silence for those killed while defending Ukraine.

Yarovenko’s mother, Nataliia, stood holding a microphone in her right hand and a large portrait of her daughter in her left. Crying, her voice shaking, she said she was giving up the most precious thing she had.

“I have given up the meaning of my entire life, but I am immensely proud,” she said. “I don’t want a hero at home. I want my child at home. But this was her path.”

Beside her stood another mother, also named Nataliia, whose daughter, 25-year-old Eva Royce, was working alongside Yarovenko and was also killed.

Royce had not yet been buried because her remains were severely burned and the identification of recovered body parts was still underway. Her mother did not speak during Yarovenko’s ceremony as she mourned her own daughter.

Yarovenko had planned to enlist after completing her fourth year at university, said her friend Anastasiia Alieksieieva.

“Her decision to volunteer and help people in Kyiv after the attacks showed how committed she was to that plan,” Alieksieieva, 21, said. “She did not even make it to graduation.”

Another close friend, Anna Donets, 19, said Yarovenko had raised money for Ukraine’s military, volunteered at a military hospital and helped organize military training for youth.

“There are not many people like her, and she was going there to help people,” Donets said. “People like her shape the future, and others should follow them. But unfortunately, Russia kills them.”

Donets described Yarovenko as exceptionally funny and someone whose presence could lift those around her.

“We were remembering her humor yesterday and laughing because she was always teasing everyone. It was never boring with her,” she said. “At 8 in the morning on teaching days, when everyone else was exhausted, she would arrive as if she were stepping onto a runway. She was so beautiful — simply a queen.”

Serhii Beskrestnov, a family friend and a presidential adviser on defense technology development, struggled to find words.

“We understand that there is a war, that men and women are dying,” he said. “But when it happens away from the front, to people who are helping ... I don’t know. I have no words right now.”

Russia launched 220 aerial weapons across Ukraine that night, including 35 missiles and 185 drones, Ukraine’s air force said. Twenty-seven missiles were ballistic Iskander-M missiles or missiles fired from S-400 systems. Ukrainian defenses intercepted only one of them, along with one guided air-launched missile.

At least nine people were killed and 33 were wounded in Kyiv that night, according to Ukrainian authorities. The attack underscored Ukraine’s critical shortage of Western-supplied defenses against ballistic missiles. Ukraine relies heavily on U.S.-made Patriot systems, but interceptor missiles remain in short supply.

At the end of the ceremony, mourners approached Yarovenko’s casket one by one, laying white flowers beside her. She was later buried at a military cemetery in Kyiv, a distinction rarely granted to civilians.

Her mother spoke of the future she had imagined for her daughter — and the future she said Ukrainians must still defend.

“We must withstand this war so that this land remains for our Ukrainian children,” she said. “Unfortunately, my child will now lie in this earth. I would have very much liked to give her a beautiful wedding, but today that is no longer possible.”

Relatives mourn near the coffin of Vitalina Yarovenko, 20, during the funeral ceremony in the Independence square in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

People kneel during the funeral ceremony for Vitalina Yarovenko, 20, in the Independence square in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Vitalina Yarovenko and her friends attend a party in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Babenko)

Vitalina Yarovenko, is seen in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, March 14, 2025. (AP Photo/Alex Babenko)

Relatives and friends mourn near the coffin of Vitalina Yarovenko, 20, during the funeral ceremony in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, Aug. 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Alex Babenko)