Kris Kobach needs to clean up his latest voting fiasco in Kansas
A competent Kansas secretary of state would quickly obey a federal judge’s order to make sure 18,000 people get registered to vote in all 2016 elections.
Unfortunately, Kris Kobach is a bumbling, mean-spirited officeholder who has no intention of properly doing his job.
Judge Julie Robinson’s ruling on Tuesday was pretty straightforward: Kobach’s attempt to keep people out of the voting booth didn’t pass constitutional muster.
The people who filed applications at Kansas Department of Motor Vehicles offices — but didn’t provide proof of citizenship — followed federal rules in registering to vote.
Kobach sputters that Kansas law — the restrictive kind he wants — requires individuals to provide that kind of voter ID before they can vote in all elections.
But as the judge noted, the U.S. motor-voter act takes precedence over state laws. Congress did the right thing when it decided people could register to vote without proof of citizenship as they registered their motor vehicles.
The judge also slapped down Kobach’s pathetic argument that he’s trying to prevent illegal voting with restrictive laws in Kansas. Robinson pointed out as others have that there’s no proof this occurs on any major basis.
“On this record, the court cannot find that the state’s interest in preventing noncitizens from voting in Kansas outweighs the risk of disenfranchising thousands of qualified voters,” she wrote.
Kobach will waste more time and tax funds by appealing the order, now set to take effect May 31. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals needs to slaps down the incompetent secretary of state and give 18,000 people their full rights to vote.
And when Kobach is up for re-election in 2018 or runs for another office in Kansas, these voters and others in the state need to remember just how badly he served the electorate during this fiasco.
This story was originally published May 18, 2016 at 11:30 AM with the headline "Kris Kobach needs to clean up his latest voting fiasco in Kansas."