of Missouri and with this chapter” before certifying the petition as sufficient or insufficient. The sufficiency determination the Secretary of State is required to conduct plainly does not include whether an initiative petition complies with the Federal Constitution. The sufficiency determination the Secretary of State is required to conduct does include whether an initiative petition complies with “the Constitution of Missouri and this chapter.” A plain reading of Chapter 116 reveals that the General Assembly intended this phrase to refer to constitutional and statutory provisions pertaining to the procedure and form required to certify an initiative petition as sufficient to appear on the ballot. In fact, our Supreme Court has so held. See Union Elec. Co., 678 S.W.2d at 405 (<HOLDING>) (emphasis added). See also, Ketchum v. Blunt,
holding that barring exceptional circumstances we will not look behind the face of the initiative petition to determine its constitutionality prior to its being voted on by the electorate  and the secretary of state and the courts  may look beyond the face of the petition only to the extent necessary to determine whether constitutional and statutory requirements pertaining to the form of the initiative petition have been satisfied holding that a court must only look to the statutory definition not the underlying circumstances of the crime to determine whether a given offense is by its nature a crime of violence for purposes of 18 usc  16 holding that courts should look to the statutory definition of the crime charged rather than the actual facts of the individuals prior conviction to determine whether the crime qualifies as a violent felony under the acca recognizing that courts may look beyond the statutory text to determine legislative intent only when the statute is ambiguous holding that courts must look to the state that rendered the judgment to determine whether the courts of that state would afford the judgment preclusive effect