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ST. CHARLES COUNTY — St. Charles County will keep thousands of 2020 presidential election ballots in a county warehouse after a group of Trump supporters here protested a routine plan to shred them, saying the ballots are needed to back up his claim of fraud in the 2020 election.

Trump’s supporters in St. Charles County for years have contended that some form of interference in the election caused his 2020 margin of victory here to be smaller than it should have been. He won the county by 18 percentage points over former President Joe Biden.

“This is a critical moment for transparency and accountability, and destroying records now would be a grave mistake,� Ali Graeff said at a recent St. Charles County Council meeting.

St. Charles County Election Authority Kurt Bahr, a Republican, asked the County Council on March 10 for approval to shred records pertaining to a dozen elections, including the 2020 presidential election. Such requests are routine for election authorities across Missouri, who are only required by statute to keep the records for 22 months after Election Day.

But Bahr’s request on March 10 was met with swift — and vocal — opposition from some St. Charles County residents.

“President Trump, who took office in January, has made it abundantly clear that he believes the 2020 election was stolen,� Graeff said.

“He’s also signaled that investigations into past elections are underway, investigations that rely on access to records, like those from St. Charles County. If we delete these records now, we’re slamming the door on the ability to uncover the truth.�

Bahr’s initial request covered a dozen elections, dating back to 2017. The voted paper ballots, the envelopes that contained ballots from absentee and provisional voters fill a 1,000-square-foot space within the election authority office in St. Peters. Unused ballots are shredded 30 days after an election, he said.

“I waited four years to request destroying these records, but it was still not long enough for some people,� Bahr said in an interview Monday.

He said the county still plans to keep four permanent records from the dozen elections: a by-precinct breakdown of the votes cast, election certification documents, sample ballots, and a certification of election outcomes by city, board and school district.

County Council member Joe Brazil, R-Defiance, has objected to Bahr’s plan.

“The law is that you’re supposed to maintain permanent records,� Brazil said at the March 10 meeting. “You’re not supposed to destroy permanent records.�

Conservatives in St. Charles County have repeatedly cast aspersions on the outcome of the election. They’ve argued for months at County Council meetings that Bahr tampered with the election and jeopardized the outcome of county, state and federal elections. Brazil filed an official complaint with former Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, a Republican, who cleared Bahr of any wrongdoing and said there was no violation of Missouri law.

Bahr said the county exclusively uses paper ballots in elections and those ballots were accurately counted.

“I think it is to be expected that a certain group of people who will, unfortunately, question everything I do,� Bahr said.

Following the March 10 council meeting, County Executive Steve Ehlmann asked Bahr to amend his request to retain the 2020 presidential election records.

“It is silly to make a deal about it,� Ehlmann said in an interview on Monday. “But if people think there is something there, then they need to get before a judge and get him to unseal those records.�

Bahr’s revised proposal asks for approval to shred documents for the other 11 elections. The council approved it 6-1 Monday night. 

The decision makes Bahr the only election authority in the region, and perhaps in the state, to still have these election records.

Officials in St. Louis, St. Louis County, and Franklin County confirmed Monday that their offices had shredded or destroyed the records in 2022, when allowed under state law.

In the meantime, Ehlmann said he is concerned that the debate over the 2020 presidential election overshadows the “more important work we have to focus on.�

“Hopefully we can move on,� he said. “Hopefully.�

This story was updated at 8:18 p.m. Monday to reflect the St. Charles County Council's vote.