KANSAS CITY, Mo. — In most cases, Missouri residents who opt to mail-in their vote must have their ballot notarized. But more than a dozen Kansas City, Missouri, businesses are partnering with a local entrepreneur to make that process easier.
Café Corazón in the West Plaza neighborhood plans to open its doors to Danielle Lehman, founder of Curbside KC, this election season.
"It’s kind of complicated when to figure out where to find a notary," Lehman said. "It's maybe not even safer if you have to go meet that notary at their house or their office."
Lehman, who created Curbside KC as a central resource to connect local restaurants with customersat the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic, recently launched Curbside Notary.
"When it's their turn, they can come up to a table just like this outside of a coffee shop, get their ballot notarized quickly and they can be on their way," Lehman told 41 Action News.
It didn't take much to convince business owners like Miel Castagna-Herrera, of Café Corazón.
"If the person that does the notary at the bank is busy or somebody seems like more troublesome -- but if you know you're coming to a place just to do that [get a ballot notarized], it seems that it would be more efficient," Castagna-Herrera said, "and it just seems like a really good plan."
As of Sunday, more than 20 curbside notary events have been scheduled beginning in late September and running through mid-October. The events are open to any registered Missouri voter, regardless of political affiliation.
This comes as the United States Postal Service has notified Missouri's Secretary of State that it might not be able to process all mail-in ballots to election officials by Nov. 3.
"Because we're anticipating there could be mail delays, I'm actually recommending that people get their ballot in as soon as possible, but no later than maybe October 15 or 16th," Lehman said. "That would give the postal service three weeks to get the ballot back to the election board."
She said she believes that her new service is a safe and accessible way for voters to have ballots notarized.
Castagna-Herrera said that people will understand that as "we get closer to the elections."
A list of locations for Curbside Notary events, as well as volunteer information, can be found on the Curbside Notary website.
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