Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach said in a radio interview Wednesday that he will continue to move forward with voter identification requirements and questioned the religiousness of church leaders who have opposed the law. While a guest on Topeka radio station WIBW 580, Kobach was asked to respond to religious leaders and other critics of the voter ID requirement. “We’re absolutely going to keep fighting back, and Kansans overwhelmingly approve it,” Kobach said. “I don’t know what churches — and I would put churches in quotation marks — because the vast majority of church leaders I’ve spoken to are fully in favor of our photo ID law.”
Kansas law requires voters to have a driver’s license number when voting by mail and a photo ID when voting in person. The state also requires proof of citizenship for first-time voters.
On June 6, a group of African-American church leaders gathering in Wichita as part of the Midwest Conference Fifth Episcopal District denounced the photo ID requirement as draconian, according to a Wichita Eagle report.
“We will not turn back, we will not sit down,” the Rev. Dr. Carieta Cain Grizzell, pastor of Grant Chapel AME Church in Wichita, said during the conference. “We are not going to stand for Jim Crow-ism, we are not going to stand for gerrymandering, we are not going to stand for anything that has discriminated against the people of God.”
Full Article: Kobach challenges church leaders who oppose voter ID law | CJOnline.com.