JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — A new lawsuit accuses two top state Republican officials of intentionally “sowing chaos” into the fight over Missouri’s new congressional maps because they politically oppose an effort to allow the voters to weigh in on the gerrymandered boundaries.

In the ninth lawsuit filed in response to the GOP effort to add a seventh safe Republican seat to the state’s eight-member delegation, the director of a ballot initiative seeking to put the maps before voters in November said the Republican elected officials are aiming “to conduct illegal primary elections.”

The latest issue in the ongoing crush of litigation is Republican Secretary of State Denny Hoskins’ plan to not certify the ballot challenge to the new GOP-tilted maps until Aug. 4, the same day voters go to the polls to decide who will run in the general election for those districts.

At the urging of President Donald Trump, Missouri waded into a national partisan gerrymandering effort last year designed to create more safe Republican districts heading into a midterm congressional election with party control in the balance.

Under the new map, the compact Kansas City 5th District represented by Democrat Emanuel Cleaver for two decades was split into three GOP-dominant districts, with the 5th stretching 200 miles east through 14 counties to Jefferson City.

Monday’s lawsuit filed in Cole County by the group People Not Politicians, which is leading the fight to overturn the redrawn maps, said Hoskins and Republican Attorney General Catherine Hanaway are actively instructing local election authorities to conduct the August primary election under the new map even though the Supreme Court said it is “impossible to know” whether the new map is in effect.

People Not Politicians has submitted more than 305,000 signatures to put the question of the new maps before voters. County clerks and election authorities have reported to Hoskins that there are enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, which should automatically freeze the new maps until voters have their say, the lawsuit notes.

In its ruling last Tuesday, the Missouri Supreme Court unanimously found the campaign’s signature turn-in did not block the new map. Rather, the court ruled the question of which map is in place is in the hands of Hoskins, who has the power to decide whether to certify the referendum for the ballot.

On Thursday, Hanaway issued a legal opinion warning county clerks that failure to use the new map in the Aug. 4 primaries “is a clear violation of the law.”

Local election officials are speaking out, saying primary election results could be voided if the elections occur in districts that do not legally exist.

“We need the secretary of state to make a decision so the courts would give us a decision on which map is in effect. We don’t want to have confusion as well as a potential lawsuit if we are going from one election to another election with a different map,” St. Charles County Elections Director Kurt Bahr told the Missouri Independent.

The lawsuit takes note of the confusion.

“Defendants are attempting to bully and intimidate local election officials into implementing congressional districts that — per the Missouri Supreme Court’s opinion and the evidence — should be deemed suspended,” wrote attorney Chuck Hatfield, a Jefferson City attorney who represents People Not Politicians.

Hoskins’ office did not respond to a request for comment.

Hanaway said the lawsuit is an attempt to draw the Supreme Court back into the fray after its ruling last week that the new map remains in effect until Hoskins takes action on the ballot question.

“This lawsuit re-litigates the exact same questions the Missouri Supreme Court just decided in Maggard. We look forward to prevailing in court,” said Hanaway spokeswoman Stephanie Whitaker.

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