Kris Kobach embarrasses Kansans ... again and again and again

Johnson County District Attorney Steve Howe looks like a genius today.

And the recent actions of Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach make him look like a money-wasting, publicity-seeking, incompetent officeholder.

Howe warned everyone in 2015 that it didn’t make sense for the Kansas Legislature to give Kobach’s office the unique power nationally to pursue certain voter fraud cases. Leave that to the experts in law enforcement, was the responsible message from Howe and others.

It turns out Howe was right.

Kobach last year filed three high-profile unlawful voting cases with pomp and circumstance.

But last week, he quietly dismissed all charges in a case against Betty Gaedtke, just days before her trial was scheduled to start in Johnson County.

This is the same Kobach who last year had confidently declared that the evidence in all his cases was “very strong that the individuals in question intentionally voted multiple times in the same election.”

Trey Pettlon, Gaedtke’s attorney in the case, had a much firmer grasp on reality.

“They saw the writing on the wall and dismissed it,” he said Friday. “... She would have been vindicated by a jury.”

In the only conviction Kobach has obtained so far, Steven Gaedtke, Betty’s husband, pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor count related to unlawful voting. He paid a $500 fine, and two other charges were dismissed.

Kobach’s ineptitude in this arena has become more obvious than ever. He’s been wrong for years in claiming voter fraud is rampant, despite abundant proof otherwise.

Unfortunately, his anti-immigrant dog whistle has been heard by too many people — including voters who elected him to office, followed by legislators who gave him the power to prosecute these cases.

Here’s the solution: The Legislature when it returns in late April should make one of its first orders of business the repealing of the law conferring upon Kobach the ability to go on these costly witch hunts.

Last week’s dismissal of charges against Gaedtke was one of only several shameful situations Kobach has been linked to in recent days.

▪ A media report revealed that the secretary of state office’s Spanish-language voter guide contained two significant errors that could make it more difficult for people to vote.

The Spanish version told voters they could register up to 15 days before an election. The actual deadline is 21 days; that information was correct in the English guide.

Also, the Spanish version omitted a fact included in the English version: People could use a passport — held by many naturalized citizens — as evidence of citizenship to register to vote.

Kobach’s support staff said it would quickly correct the online guide.

But it’s offensive that Kobach’s office website would contain wrong information in a guide that’s supposed to help legal citizens participate in democracy, especially given his off-target rants against supposed illegal voting by immigrants.

▪ Allied Progress, a nonprofit public advocacy group, says it wants a full investigation of communication between Kobach and Brian Newby, the new executive director of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission and a former leader of the Johnson County Election Office.

This is a probe worth doing.

As we wrote recently, it was unsettling that Newby as one of his first orders of business issued a unilateral decision that people in Kansas, Alabama and Georgia could not register to vote by using a national form — one that doesn’t require providing proof of U.S. citizenship.

It turns out, as The Associated Press reported, that Newby and Kobach traded emails that raise troubling questions about how much influence Kobach had related to Newby’s new position. The big concern: Why did Newby put in place more restrictive voting rules favored by Kobach, his benefactor?

▪ Finally, just for good measure, Kobach continues to play up the fact that he not only thinks Donald Trump’s idea of a big wall on the Mexican border makes sense, but that he has a way of paying for the insanely expensive venture.

Kobach needs to stop gallivanting around the country preening for the anti-immigrant crowd.

The Legislature ought to strip him of his powers to prosecute unlawful voting cases.

And he should start paying far more attention to his real job: providing accurate election-related information to Kansans.

This story was originally published April 11, 2016 at 4:47 PM.