Voting Blogs: ‘Got Voter ID?’ States Educational Campaign Efforts Vary Widely | TPM

Mark Goins is the Coordinator of Elections in the Tennessee Secretary of State’s Office. He’s also guy in charge of educating Tennessee voters about the state’s new voter identification requirement. While other states have hired outside public relations firms to get the word out about the regulation, he’s been doing everything in-house. That includes outreach to specific communities statistically less likely to have a form of photo identification which meets the new requirements, which was conducted by members of his staff on top of their other responsibilities. “I’ve got a younger person in the office, he’s in his 20s, so he was kind of coordinating the college voters, so that was kind of his job,” Goins told TPM. “I’ve got a minority, well I hate to use the word minority, but I’ve got a person of color within the office who was the minority outreach, if you will, if you use that term. She was the person who went to some NAACP meetings.” As several states prepare to implement voter ID laws passed by their legislatures in November, TPM’s interviews with elections officials show that education efforts are all over the map.

Mississippi: Voter Fraud Problem? | Jackson Free Press

Backers of voter identification in Mississippi and other states say the laws will eliminate voter fraud–but it may be a solution looking for a problem. Between 2000 and 2010, the country saw only 13 plausible cases of voter fraud, but since 2001 almost 1,000 voter ID laws have passed in 46 states across the country, including Mississippi, reports The Brennan Center for Justice, a non-partisan group in New York City that focuses on fundamental issues of justice including voter rights. In fact, Indiana, a state that recently introduced a voter ID requirement, went before the U.S. Supreme Court to defend the bill, representatives from the state could not give one instance of voter fraud in their state’s history. The Wall Street Journal reported that though Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach cited 221 cases of voter fraud in his state between 1997 and 2010, only seven brought convictions, but none related to voter fraud. Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said that Wisconsin was “absolutely riddled with voter fraud,” Mother Jones reports. However, in 2004 the state only found seven total votes that were fraudulent.

Editorials: A Case Study in How Kris Kobach’s Cabal Aims to Remake Election Law | The Nation

 “Some 1,500 people voted under dead people’s and prisoners’ names from 2008-11, according to Michigan’s auditor general. Many might be clerical errors, but this illustrates the need to ensure accurate voter rolls.” Michigan Secretary of State Ruth Johnson wrote this in a July 2 Times-Herald column, and she lied. Johnson is a member of a fifteen-state consortium of right-wing elections officials that’s hellbent on purging voters. And her dishonest jousting in Michigan this week offers a window into how that consortium works—playing fast and loose with facts in order to create the impression of a problem that would justify their hardline solutions, and flouting the law themselves when necessary. Johnson’s Monday column was a last-ditch effort to persuade Governor Rick Snyder to sign into law herSecure and Fair Elections (SAFE) initiative, including the bills HB 5061 and SB 803, which respectively would force voters to reaffirm their citizenship before receiving a ballot and would require photo ID for absentee voting. Another bill, SB 754, would put onerous restrictions on third-party registration organizations, much like a Florida law that was recently blocked by a federal judge. On Tuesday, Governor Snyder vetoed those three bills, but preserved the rest of Johnson’s SAFE package. Despite Johnson’s constant refrain on dead people voting, her own Bureau of Elections has already established that there was no actual voter fraud in the auditor general’s report she referenced in her July 2 column.

Kansas: Judges will now draw Kansas political districts | KansasCity.com

Now it’s federal judges who are racing the clock. With the Aug. 7 primary election looming, a panel of federal judges will try to do in a few weeks what the Kansas Legislature couldn’t in three months: draw new election districts. The three judges — Kathryn Vratil, Mary Beck Briscoe and John Lungstrom of U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kan., — on Wednesday concluded a two-day hearing that examined the Legislature’s unsuccessful efforts to redraw election districts for Congress, the state House and Senate, and the Board of Education. The Legislature met for 99 days and couldn’t come up with district maps to account for population shifts reflected in the latest census. As a result, the court is doing the job.

Kansas: Redistricting case unlikely to move at Kobach’s pace | KansasCity.com

Three federal judges who will set new political boundaries for Kansas told Secretary of State Kris Kobach on Monday that they are uncomfortable resolving redistricting issues as quickly as he wants and that potential administrative problems in overseeing elections are not as important as gathering different perspectives on how lines should be drawn. Kobach was in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kan., for a pretrial hearing as the defendant in a lawsuit over state legislators’ failure to approve any redistricting proposals this year. Lawmakers were supposed to adjust the lines of congressional, state House, state Senate and State Board of Education districts to reflect population shifts over the past decade, but a bitter feud among Republicans prevented it.

Kansas: Kobach asks federal judges to redraw Kansas districts | KansasCity.com

Of the 50 states, Kansas now stands as the only one that has yet to draw new congressional boundaries. And it’s one of a handful of states that have yet to draw new state Senate and House districts, threatening to further delay candidate filing deadlines for the 2012 elections — and possibly even the Aug. 7 primary. Secretary of State Kris Kobach on Wednesday said lawmakers’ slow pace in redistricting is creating a “constitutional crisis,” and he asked a federal judge to intervene because lawmakers can’t get the job done. “I don’t want to go to court,” Kobach said at a news conference. “I don’t want to play any role in drawing these district lines. I am simply saying, ‘Please do your job. Take this out of my hands.’ ”

Nebraska: Redistricting process enters “uncharted territory” | CJOnline.com

Throughout the legislative session, Sen. Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka, has referred to redistricting as “one of my favorite subjects,” so many times that it has become a running gag. But even Hensley — who scored a major legislative victory 10 years ago when he helped form a coalition to protect Democrats and conservative Republicans against moderates — seemed sick of the current redistricting debate at a media briefing Friday. “It would appear we’re headed to court to resolve this issue,” Hensley said. “I think that’s very unfortunate.”

Kansas: Kobach concedes voter-citizenship plan dead | KansasCity.com

Secretary of State Kris Kobach conceded Thursday that Kansas won’t require first-time voters to provide proof of their U.S. citizenship ahead of this year’s elections because the Senate’s top leader effectively killed the proposal. Kobach, who pushed the proposal, declared it dead after Senate President Steve Morris assigned the legislation to a hostile committee. The House passed the bill Wednesday, and Kobach had hoped Morris would bypass a committee review, making an up-or-down vote possible in the Senate to determine whether the bill went to Gov. Sam Brownback.

Kansas: House sends voter registration bill to Senate | Topeka Capitol-Journal

The House gave final approval Wednesday to a bill that would move up new proof of citizenship requirements for voter registration to June 15, as recommended by Secretary of State Kris Kobach. The bill, which passed 72-51, now heads to the Senate, where leadership has shown little interest in taking it up. The Senate voted last year to stagger the implementation of photo ID voting requirements and the citizenship measure, delaying the latter until Jan. 1, 2013.

Missouri: Bill requiring proof of citizenship at voter registration advances | KansasCity.com

People would have to prove they are U.S. citizens when they register to vote under a proposal approved by a Missouri House committee last week. But some of the bill’s most controversial provisions were stripped out after criticism emerged that they could make it more difficult for members of the military serving oversees to cast a ballot. Missouri House Speaker Pro Tem Shane Schoeller, a Willard Republican, painted the legislation as another attempt at preventing voter fraud. He sponsored legislation earlier this year that would require voters to show a government-issued photo ID, a bill that has cleared the House but has languished in the Missouri Senate. The legislation would require anyone wishing to register to vote to provide documentation — a birth certificate, passport or other document — that would show they are a U.S. citizen. It’s nearly identical to legislation passed last year in Kansas that was written by Republican Secretary of State Kris Kobach.

Kansas: Split in Kansas Senate GOP stalls redistricting | The Winfield Daily Courier

A bitter split between conservative and moderate Republicans has kept the Kansas Senate from agreeing on a proposal for redrawing their districts, and the delay threatens to create administrative headaches ahead of this year’s primary election. Republican Gov. Sam Brownback is involved in the debate, as is the powerful Kansas Chamber of Commerce. House Republican leaders are frustrated enough with the Senate’s inability to produce a new political map that they’re preparing to intervene, which would break with decades of tradition. Secretary of State Kris Kobach, the state’s chief elections official, warns that if redistricting issues aren’t settled quickly enough, the state will have to push back its June 1 candidate filing deadline. Also, county officials could violate a federal law governing the distribution of ballots to military personnel overseas.

Kansas: Kobach’s proof of citizenship proposal lives again | LJWorld.com

Less than a week ago, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s proposal to move up the date to require proof of citizenship for voter registration appeared dead. But it’s not dead yet. Kobach’s allies in the House have replaced the contents of a Senate bill with Kobach’s plan, which gives the effort new life. In the Statehouse, this procedure is called a “gut and go.” Opponents of Kobach’s proof of citizenship requirement are calling it a shady maneuver to sneak through controversial legislation. “Kobach’s rush to suppress the vote in time for the 2012 elections has now led him not only to undermine the will of the people and our Legislature, but to deceive all Kansans while subverting our legislative process altogether,” a statement from KanVote said.

National: Behind the brewing voter ID war | The Washington Post

Every election cycle, voter ID laws cause controversy. But the 2010 Republican wave in state government and aggressive pushback from the Justice Department have combined to create a clash that could end at the Supreme Court. The fight over voter ID is almost entirely along party lines. Republicans argue that voter ID is a necessary protection against voter fraud while Democrats counter that fraud is used as an excuse to suppress turnout among elderly, poor and minority voters who may have more difficulty obtaining proper ID. (Evidence of widespread fraud is scant.) Here’s an update on where it stands, across the country.

Kansas: Voter ID law being blocked by lawmakers | KSN TV

A key lawmaker in Topeka appears to be blocking a vote on a controversial Kansas voter I-D law. Secretary of State Kris Kobach has been pushing to fast-track the voter I-D law in Kansas to get it in place for the November elections. “The Senate Ethics and Elections Standing Committee will not be meeting again this year,” wrote State Senator Terrie Huntington of Fairway. Huntington’s committee listened to arguments this week regarding the fast-track of voter I-D. The committee has questions about the state being ready to administer voter I-D at this time.

Kansas: Secretary of State Kobach says group trying to discredit voter ID law | KansasCity.com

A voter advocacy group claimed Thursday that Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s 2011-2012 office calendar contains gaps and inconsistencies, suggesting that he spends too much time working on issues unrelated to his office.But Kobach, a Republican, defended his work ethic and said the critics were simply misreading his schedule. “My calendar principally just includes my appointments and scheduled interviews,” he said. “The time that’s not scheduled is the time like right now when I’m working on documents, reading court cases …. The claim they are making is completely unsupported by the calendar.”

Kansas: Opponents criticize effort to move up start date of citizenship requirement for voter registration | Wichita Eagle

Kansas is ill-prepared to ensure poor, elderly, minority and transient Kansans have convenient access to documents and ID cards that will allow them to cast a ballot in elections this year, voter advocates said this morning. Louis Goseland, who represents the KanVote group fighting voter suppression, said he and others in Wichita have tested agencies to see if they’re prepared for voter ID laws now in effect and that those agencies seem uninformed and unprepared to help would-be voters. “It’s just been one thing after another,” he told the House Elections Committee this morning.

Kansas: Senator says State not ready for voter ID laws | CJOnline.com

Sen. Kelly Kultala, D-Kansas City, said Wednesday that a mix-up over the availability of free birth certificates shows that the state is not ready for Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s new voter ID laws. Kobach alluded to the misunderstanding in testimony before the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee, of which Kultala is a member.

Kansas: Kobach touts Kansas voter ID law; Democrats say it will deprive legitimate votes | LJWorld.com

Democratic legislators on Monday said the voter ID law that Secretary of State Kris Kobach pushed will deny more votes of legitimate voters than it will catch in fraudulent votes. “I’d be willing to put a $5 bill on it,” said state Rep. Ann Mah, D-Topeka. But Kobach, a Republican, said showing a photo ID to vote isn’t onerous. He said a photo ID is required in many aspects of everyday life, and he noted that Illinois was considering a law to require a photo ID to purchase Drano.

Kansas: Fate of elections bill tied to computer issue | KansasCity.com

Progress on modernizing the Kansas computer system for issuing driver’s licenses is six months ahead of schedule and could mean that some potential voters will be required to show proof of their U.S. citizenship during this year’s presidential election, a key legislator said Monday. House Elections Committee Chairman Scott Schwab, an Olathe Republican, said legislators want to be sure the state Division of Vehicles is ready to scan and store electronic copies of documents such as birth certificates and passports before revising a state law that imposes the proof-of-citizenship requirement. The law applies to people registering to vote for the first time in Kansas.

Kansas: Absentee voting concerns raised under new law | LJWorld.com

An election law written by Secretary of State Kris Kobach that requires photo identification to vote and other restrictions is raising new concerns about absentee voting. Under the law, county election officials must decide whether the signature on a request for an advance ballot matches the person’s previous signature that could be on a voter registration form or another type of identification. If it doesn’t, the election official must make an effort to contact that person to give them another attempt at signing the application.

But Rep. Ed Trimmer, D-Winfield, said the law and its accompanying rules and regulations failed to prescribe how much of an effort the county election official must make to track down the potential voter and clear up the dispute. “This gives a lot of leeway to the election officer,” Trimmer said. He said many times, people who request advance ballots will be difficult to reach because they requested an advance ballot knowing they would be elsewhere around the time of the election.

Editorials: Voter ID Laws Could Keep Students From Voting in 2012 Elections | Camira Powell/PolicyMic

College campuses across the nation are teeming with students ready to exercise their right to vote, one of the few perks that comes with turning 18. Yet, instead of encouraging students to take part in this rite of passage, some states are imposing voter ID requirements that make it much harder for them to vote. The fact that some Republicans see these new voter restrictions as a good thing shows their complete disregard for the democratic process. Moreover, it is demonstrative of their reasonable fear of losing the upcoming presidential election.

At first glance, the laws do no seem that restrictive. The new laws are requiring voters to present government-issued IDs, such as a passport or drivers license. However, when considering that a significant portion of students only carry a form of student ID, it becomes an issue. Additionally, other laws being endorsed by Republican lawmakers regarding voter ID can be interpreted as prohibiting out-of-state drivers’ licenses; thus, excluding more students from being able to vote.

Kansas: Southwest Kansas election is first test of new voter ID law | kansascity.com

A southwestern Kansas town’s election next month on the financing of a new municipal swimming pool will be the first test of a much-debated state law that requires voters to show photo identification at the polls.

The law takes effect Sunday. On Jan. 10, the 2,200 residents of Cimarron, about 175 miles west of Wichita, will decide whether to impose a 1.25 percent sales tax to help finance the new pool and cover its operating costs.

Gray County Clerk Bonnie Swartz said Tuesday that she’s not anticipating significant problems, though she expects some voters will be frustrated if they forget to bring ID. She said if turnout is strong, 40 percent of registered voters, or about 480 people, may cast ballots.

“There are going to be some who say, `You know who I am,“’ she said. “It’s harder to enforce this type of a law in a small community because everybody knows everybody.”

Kansas: Secretary of state fined $5,000 for errors in campaign reports | KansasCity.com

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s campaign was fined $5,000 Wednesday for mistakes made in filing expense and contribution reports for the 2010 election. The Governmental Ethics Commission voted 7-2 to impose the maximum fine after questioning Kobach’s campaign treasurer, state Rep. Tom Arpke of Salina. At issue was nearly $80,000 that was omitted from the reports.

Commission Chairwoman Sabrina Standifer said the maximum fine was imposed, in part, because the campaign maintained that it reported the omissions to ethics officials. “The commission does not condone lack of candor before the commission,” Standifer said. “This is in no way, shape or form self-reporting.”

Editorials: The Myth of Voter Fraud | NYTimes.com

It has been a record year for new legislation designed to make it harder for Democrats to vote — 19 laws and two executive actions in 14 states dominated by Republicans, according to a new study by the Brennan Center for Justice. As a result, more than five million eligible voters will have a harder time participating in the 2012 election.

Of course the Republicans passing these laws never acknowledge their real purpose, which is to turn away from the polls people who are more likely to vote Democratic, particularly the young, the poor, the elderly and minorities. They insist that laws requiring government identification cards to vote are only to protect the sanctity of the ballot from unscrupulous voters. Cutting back on early voting, which has been popular among working people who often cannot afford to take off from their jobs on Election Day, will save money, they claim.

None of these explanations are true. There is almost no voting fraud in America. And none of the lawmakers who claim there is have ever been able to document any but the most isolated cases. The only reason Republicans are passing these laws is to give themselves a political edge by suppressing Democratic votes.

Editorials: Five myths about voter fraud | The Washington Post

In “The Breakfast Club,” a geeky high school student played by Anthony Michael Hall says he procured a fake ID not to buy beer, but to vote. But are new photo ID laws in Alabama, Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Wisconsin really necessary to stop widespread fraud like that perpetrated by a John Hughes character? Or are photo ID laws just another conservative scheme to oppress young people and minorities and limit Democratic turnout? Let’s put aside what we think we know about the ballot box and find out.

1. We need state voter ID laws to prevent fraud.

Prosecutable cases of voter fraud are rare. For example, a 2005 statewide study in Ohio found four instances of ineligible persons voting or attempting to vote in 2002 and 2004, out of 9 million votes cast. An investigation of fraud allegations in Wisconsin in 2004 led to the prosecution of 0.0007 percent of voters. From 2002 to 2005, the Justice Department found, only five people were convicted for voting multiple times. In that same period, federal prosecutors convicted only 86 people for improper voting.

According to Barnard political scientist Lorraine Minnite, most instances of improper voting involve registration and eligibility, such as voters filling out registration forms incorrectly or a person with felony convictions attempting to register. Neither of those issues would be prevented by a state photo ID requirement. According to George Washington University law professor Spencer Overton, a former member of the Commission on Federal Election Reform, “a photo ID requirement would prevent over 1,000 legitimate votes (perhaps over 10,000 legitimate votes) for every single improper vote prevented.”

Kansas: Group meets in Wichita to organize fight against voter ID law | Wichita Eagle

Leaders representing about two dozen, faith, labor and civil rights groups from across Kansas met here today to organize efforts to battle early implementation of the state’s voter identification law. The organizations were reacting to efforts announced by Secretary of State Kris Kobach to begin enforcing a provision requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration next spring. The law, passed last March, currently doesn’t go into effect until January 2013. Election officials have also voiced opposition to moving up the date.

But groups meeting over the lunch hour at Inter-Faith Ministries said Kobach’s efforts to start the requirement in March could keep thousands of Kansas citizens from participating in the 2012 elections. People who don’t have driver’s licenses or changes in name or address may not have the documentation required by law to register to vote, they said.

“This is not a partisan issue,” Marie Johnson of the NAACP in Salina told the group. “It makes it more difficult for people to participate in our democracy.”

National: Do New Voting Laws Suppress Fraud? Or Democrats? | NPR

While campaigning to become Kansas’ secretary of state, Kris Kobach held a press conference to make the case for a photo ID requirement at the polls. In his argument, he noted that a man named Alfred K. Brewer, who died in 1996, had voted in the 2010 primary. There was just one problem with that: Brewer wasn’t dead.

Shortly after the press conference, Brewer’s wife received a call regarding her husband’s “passing.” And she says, ‘Well, why do you want to talk to me? He’s out raking leaves,'” Brewer says.

It turned out the voter rolls Kobach referenced had the birth date for Brewer’s father, who had the same name. Despite the mistake, Kobach was trying to make a serious point. He’s part of a growing number of Republican lawmakers trying to crack down on voter fraud.

Voting Blogs: Kris Kobach and the Seven Dwarfs | Rick Hasen/Election Law Blog

During yesterday’s “To the Point” show, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach and I went over the question whether voter identification laws actually can prevent fraud.  I pointed out that impersonation fraud rarely if ever happens, and Kobach confirmed he’s got no cases of impersonation fraud he can point to in Kansas.  But Kobach also said that a state id requirement would be necessary to prevent a different type of crime: the use of false registrations (of fictitious people) to cast votes in elections.  He gave the example of someone registering and voting ballots for the fictitious seven dwarfs.  I pointed out that I was not aware of a single case of fraudulent registrations (such as from ACORN) leading to actual fraudulent votes (the reason the ACORN-type fraud occurred was because poor people who worked to register voters made up fake names to keep their jobs, not to rig elections.)  But a reader sends along another great point about why a state i.d. is unnecessary to stop voter fraud in this instance:

I was struck by the “perfect crime” tale — the  hypothetical attempt to register the seven dwarves. He seems to have ignored that HAVA’s voter id requirements for any voter who registers to vote by mail and has not previously voted in a Federal election. (See HAVA Section 303)  That is of course, presuming that Sleepy and Grumpy are not long time registered voters. If those “voters” want to vote absentee (I doubt the fraudster would be able to produce Sleepy and Grumpy to cast an in person vote without arousing some suspicion), they are required to provide a valid photo ID or a current utility bill, bank statement, government check, paycheck or other government document that shows the name and address of the voter.

Kansas: Dead aren’t voting in Sedgwick County | Wichita Eagle

When it comes to deleting the deceased from Kansas voter rolls, county election commissioners depend on ELVIS. But election officials say even ELVIS — which stands for Election Voter Information System, which cross-references voter rolls with state records — can’t shake out all the names that no longer belong.

Sometimes a onetime Kansas voter moves out of state and dies without the Kansas Department of Health and Environment’s Office of Vital Statistics noting it, said Sedgwick County Election Commissioner Bill Gale. Gale recently cross-checked Sedgwick County voters with the Social Security Death Index, national obituary websites and other sources. Then his office deleted 141 on the voter rolls identified as deceased, including at least one who died a decade ago.

Editorials: What’s the rush? One major election change is enough for Kansas counties to handle this year | LJWorld.com

If there was reason to believe that Kansas has a serious problem with noncitizens voting in its elections, it might make sense to rush into a voter registration system designed to stem such abuse.

However, because there is little evidence that such a problem exists, it only makes sense for the state to take a little time to implement the requirement that Kansas residents show proof of citizenship when they register to vote.

The county clerks who actually have to run the elections are saying they have enough changes to deal with in the coming year without adding the proof-of-citizenship requirement. Secretary of State Kris Kobach should respect their opinion.