I’ve written a few times now on Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach and the badly misnamed Commission on Election Integrity he was appointed to. A federal court has ordered the disclosure of testimony by Kobach. The ACLU has obtained copies of the testimony and explains it all to us.
Back in 2013 Kobach implemented a law in Kansas saying to be able to vote people had to give proof of citizenship – a passport of birth certificate. By December 2015 more than 35,000, about 14%, of registered voters in the state had been disenfranchised. This disproportionately affected minorities (which was Kobach’s intent).
A year ago the ACLU took the case to the 10th Circuit Court. The National Voter Registration Act says that before enacting such sweeping restrictions there needed to be proof that significant numbers of noncitizens were registered to vote. Kobach, of course, had none.
So Kobach drafted a revision to the NVRA to removed the requirement that a state had to show proof. The draft bill and the claim that the nasty guy would have won the popular vote if all those (3 million) noncitizens were prevented from voting was Kobach’s calling card to the freshly elected administration. That got him his new gig and a new bestie in Rep. Steve King of Iowa to introduce the revision sometime in the future.
People were noticing that the title of the Commission on Election Integrity didn’t match Kobach’s reputation. So those people asked Kobach to explain his intentions. In reply Kobach lied.
Which is why the issue went before a court and the ACLU now has the testimony.
No comments:
Post a Comment