Less than two months before Election Day, a group of Kansas Republicans, led by a voter ID law advocate, is moving on a withdrawn challenge which may result in President Obama being removed from the ballot. Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who has embraced forcing voters to produce ID at the polls, said Sept. 13 that he will preside over a Kansas Board of Objections Sept. 17 meeting where a Manhattan, Kansas veterinary professor Joe Montgomery, questioned Obama’s birthplace and the citizenship of his father. Kobach said that the board is obligated to do a thorough review of the questions raised by Montgomery about Obama’s birth certificate and not make “a snap decision.” However, Montgomery on Sept 14 withdrew his objections, stating that the Kansas roots of Obama’s mother and grandparents, apparently in his opinion, satisfies the U.S. Constitution’s “natural-born citizen” requirement for the presidency.
The complaint withdrawal came after Kobach made requests to officials in Hawaii, Arizona and Mississippi for copies of the president’s birth records. The birth certificate controversy has been settled in those states and Obama is on those states’ ballots. In spite of the withdrawal, Kobach said he nevertheless doesn’t believe the matter is dead. “I don’t think it’s a frivolous objection,” according to Kobach, an unofficial advisor to GOP presidential challenger Mitt Romney’s campaign. “I do think the factual record could be supplemented.”