North Carolina: A Battle Over Voter Suppression In North Carolina | US News

The North Carolina NAACP is preparing to take legal action against the state Board of Elections for suppressing voter registration. Just months after the NAACP won a three-year legal battle against a North Carolina voter identification guide, NAACP President William Barber II said Friday that the state Board of Elections was in violation of the 1993 National Voter Registration act as thousands of black citizens in this battleground state were having their voting registration challenged in court. “Voting fraud is a distraction: statistically and legally nonexistent,” Barber said. “It is in fact voter suppression that is the real threat in this election.” Dozens of delegates at NAACP state convention surrounded Barber as he spoke in front of the North Carolina Governor’s mansion, bearing signs that read, “Vote because black lives are on the ballot” or “vote because education is on the ballot,” and chanting “Yes!” or “amen” as he spoke.

Ohio: Hundreds march to Board of Elections to cast ballots, protest dearth of early-voting locations | Cleveland Plain Dealer

Several hundred voters marched to the Cuyahoga County Board of Elections on Sunday to cast ballots and protest the limited number of in-house early voting locations in Ohio. The marchers departed at 2:30 p.m. from the Trinity Episcopal Cathedral and traveled a half-mile to the Board of Elections headquarters on Euclid Avenue. Greater Cleveland Congregations and the Amalgamated Transit Union organized the event to encourage Cuyahoga County residents to vote early before the general election on Nov. 8.

Editorials: The Real Voting Problem in the 2016 Election | Zachary Roth/Politico

Donald Trump’s claims that the election will be “rigged” through voter fraud have become a centerpiece of his faltering campaign. There’s no evidence to support this incendiary charge, but the GOP candidate has been energetically spreading the notion that if Hillary Clinton wins, it will only be because thousands of illegal votes will be cast on Nov. 8. Polls now suggest that most Trump supporters fear the election could be stolen from their man. Trump is right that fairness is going to be a problem this year. He’s wrong about where the problem really lies. In fact, the real voting problem we face in 2016 is almost exactly the opposite of what Trump is complaining about: Officials in at least five states, including several key presidential battlegrounds, have been dragging their feet on obeying court orders to open up access to the polls. As a result, rather than an epidemic of illegal, fraudulent votes, the election is likely to see tens or even hundreds of thousands of people across the country deprived of their constitutional right to cast a ballot. The election wasn’t supposed to unfold this way. Over the summer and early fall, 2016 was shaping up as a landmark year for voting rights, as a string of federal court rulings struck down, blocked or loosened restrictive voting laws in key states across the country. In the three most significant decisions, North Carolina’s sweeping voting law was struck down, Texas’ voter ID law was significantly loosened, and a court required that Wisconsin promise to make voter IDs available on demand, seemingly blunting the impact of that state’s ID law. Voting rights supporters, who had fought for years against restrictions on who can register and when, breathed a cautious sigh of relief. But as Election Day approaches, what’s actually happening on the ground in those states reveals a troubling reality: Important as they are, court rulings can’t adequately protect voting rights if election officials simply don’t want to make things easy for voters.

Indiana: State Police chief reports cases of voter fraud | Los Angeles Times

Indiana’s top cop suggested Friday that investigators had uncovered several instances of voter fraud in the state, an allegation that adds fuel to a fiery debate over whether elections are “rigged” and subject to abuse. Indiana State Police Supt. Douglas Carter said in a local TV interview that Gov. Mike Pence “absolutely did not misspeak” this week when he warned supporters of potential voter fraud during a campaign stop in Nevada. Carter said he believed there was voter fraud in “every state,” including Indiana. Carter refused to provide details about how many instances of voter fraud police have found, or the exact nature of the fraud — whether investigators found, for example, cases of people registering to vote multiple times or whether those ineligible to vote tried to register. … Experts have found voter fraud to be extremely rare, with one study from a Loyola Law School professor finding just 31 credible claims of fraud amid more than 1 billion ballots cast since 2000. The head elections officers in most presidential battleground states are Republicans. … Officials for Indiana Voter Registration Project, which is connected to Washington-based nonprofit Patriot Majority USA, have denied the fraud accusations and said Pence and other Republicans are targeting the group to suppress votes.

Kansas: Federal appeals court: Right to vote constitutionally protected | Topeka Capital Journal

A federal appeals court laid out on Wednesday the legal reasoning behind its decision earlier this month that allowed thousands of Kansas residents to register to vote without providing documents proving their U.S. citizenship. The 85-page opinion from the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals came a day after voter registration closed in Kansas for the November election. The appeals court had earlier this month upheld a preliminary injunction that forced Kansas to register people who filled out voter applications at motor vehicle offices. “There can be no dispute that the right to vote is a constitutionally protected fundamental right,” the appeals court wrote. The opinion released Wednesday essentially explained why the appeals court upheld U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson’s preliminary injunction requiring the state to register thousands of people for federal elections. The case was filed by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of several prospective voters and the League of Women Voters.

Indiana: Group named in Indiana voter fraud probe was registering black voters | Chicago Tribune

A Democratic-aligned group at the center of an Indiana investigation into possible voter fraud said Thursday it focused on registering black residents of Indiana because the state had the nation’s lowest overall voter turnout in 2014. Patriot Majority USA has ties to the Democratic Party, including Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid and former president Bill Clinton, and is one of a host of organizations doing political work on both the right and left that are not required to disclose their donors. According to its 2014 tax return, the most recent available, the group had $30.5 million in revenue that year and spent $13.6 million on political activities, but donors were not disclosed. Between 2009 and 2012, the last years the group disclosed donors, it received $2.2 million from labor unions, according to Federal Election Commission figures, including major contributions from teachers and public employee unions.

National: Controversial Republican Mike Roman to run Donald Trump’s ‘election protection’ | The Guardian

Donald Trump’s “election protection” effort will be run by Mike Roman, a Republican operative best known for promoting a video of apparent voter intimidation by the New Black Panthers outside a polling place in 2008. Roman is to oversee poll-watching efforts as Trump undertakes an unprecedented effort by a major party nominee by calling into question the legitimacy of the popular vote weeks before election day. The Republican nominee has insisted, without evidence, that dead people and undocumented immigrants are voting in the United States. Trump has long claimed that the 2016 election is rigged but has amplified his claims of voter fraud in recent days. On Monday he tweeted: “Of course there is large scale voter fraud happening on and before election day. Why do Republican leaders deny what is going on? So naive!” In particular Trump claimed in an interview with Fox News that voter fraud was rampant in cities including Philadelphia, St Louis and Chicago after long warning vaguely about fraud in “certain communities”.

Kansas: Kobach asks court to set aside default judgment | Lawrence Journal World

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach has asked a federal court to set aside a default judgment against him for failing to file a timely response to a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of a state law requiring prospective voters to prove they are U.S. citizens. A federal court clerk earlier this week entered Kobach as being in default in a case concerning the state’s proof-of-citizenship requirement because Kobach had failed to file documents with the court on time. In a motion filed Friday in U.S. District Court, Kobach asked the court to set aside the default judgment, saying he believed the court had suspended certain deadlines in the case. He also criticized his opponents for “trying to play a game of ‘gotcha’ litigation,” The Wichita Eagle reported. “They keep changing their complaint and forcing us to write a new answer,” he said.

Indiana: Did Mike Pence engage in voter suppression in Indiana? | CS Monitor

A series of new radio and print advertisements denouncing Mike Pence are set to go public in Indiana, where an advocacy group has accused the Republican vice presidential nominee of allowing voter suppression. Patriot Majority USA, a group affiliated with the Senate Majority PAC, a super PAC that supports Democratic candidates, is launching an advertising campaign following an Indiana state police raid of the offices of a voter registration program. The advertisements claim that as many as 45,000 people, most of them African Americans, might not be able to vote in the presidential election if investigators put a hold on applications collected by the group. The raid and subsequent accusations of voter suppression come in the final weeks of an election season that has raised widespread concern over voter fraud, due in large part to warnings from Republican nominee Donald Trump of a rigged election and his calls for GOP supporters to monitor the polls on election day. A recent Washington Post-ABC poll found that 46 percent of registered voters – and more than two-thirds of Trump supporters – believe that voter fraud, defined as multiple votes being cast by a single person or an ineligible person casting a ballot, occurs very or somewhat often. But the growing concern over voter fraud has led to arguments from the other side that efforts to prevent fraud, such as poll monitoring, could result in voter intimidation and threaten the democratic election process.

Indiana: Group accuses Mike Pence of voter suppression after state police raid registration program in Indiana | The Washington Post

A progressive advocacy group is launching an advertising campaign accusing Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who also is the Republican vice-presidential nominee, of allowing voter suppression after state police raided the offices of a voter registration program aimed at signing up African Americans. Patriot Majority USA will place the ads on black-oriented radio stations and in print and online with black newspapers throughout the state starting Saturday, said the group’s director, Craig Varoga. Patriot Majority is affiliated with the Senate Majority PAC, a super PAC that supports Democratic candidates. On Oct. 4, one week before the state’s deadline to register to vote, state police raided the Indianapolis office of the Indiana Voter Registration Project, seizing computers, cellphones and records. The state police launched an investigation in late August after elections officials in Hendricks County, a suburb of Indianapolis, alerted authorities to some applications that seemed amiss. A spokesman for the state police told local news media that “at least 10” applications were confirmed to be fraudulent.

Kansas: Kobach found in default in proof-of-citizenship lawsuit | The Wichita Eagle

The Kansas requirement that voters provide proof of citizenship could be struck down by a federal court because Secretary of State Kris Kobach failed to file a response earlier this year. The state’s requirement that voters provide a birth certificate or other proof of citizenship when they register to vote had already been weakened after federal courts ruled that the state could not require proof of citizenship of people who register at the Department of Motor Vehicles or with the federal form. However, the requirement remained intact for voters who registered using the state form or through the state’s website.

Kansas: Kobach files late response in voter case | The Wichita Eagle

A federal court will decide whether to excuse Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s late filing in a case about the constitutionality of requiring people to prove they are citizens when they register to vote. Kobach filed an 88-page response in a federal lawsuit Tuesday night, hours after being found in default for failing to respond in time to an amended complaint. A spokeswoman for his office said it still must file a motion to set aside the default. The plaintiffs’ attorneys filed a motion to strike Kobach’s late response Wednesday afternoon, contending it was improper because it was not paired with a motion to allow a late filing or set aside the default. “He chose to represent himself in the case, as well as several others, and he has a responsibility to get things filed and filed on time. And at this point, he hasn’t done that,” said Will Lawrence, one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs. Kobach did not return phone calls about the case on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Editorials: Donald Trump’s strategy for minority Americans? Don’t let them vote. | The Washington Post

With Donald Trump’s polling numbers in a tailspin, he has doubled down in calling on Republican vigilantes to take matters into their own hands to thwart what many of them are primed to regard, without proof, as a rigged election. The Republican nominee’s rhetoric, inciting white rural and suburban voters who fear the voting clout of black urban Democrats, is a recipe for voter intimidation and even violence on Election Day. It also lays the groundwork for his followers to believe, if he loses,that his defeat was a historic swindle. Starting in August, and accelerating this month, Mr. Trump has stood before rallies attended overwhelmingly by his white backers and urged them to go to “certain areas” on Election Day. “Go and vote and then go check out areas because a lot of bad things happen,” he said in Pennsylvania, where lax state laws allow poll watchers to challenge voters as they arrive at precincts. “You know what I’m talking about,” he added. On Monday, he told his followers that they must watch “other communities.” “I hear these horror shows, and we have to make sure that this election is not stolen from us and is not taken away from us,” he said. “And everybody knows what I’m talking about.”

National: Trump suggests illegal immigrants will vote as parties clash over voter access | The Washington Post

Donald Trump suggested without evidence Friday that the Obama administration was letting illegal immigrants into the country to vote — part of a series of unsubstantiated complaints by the GOP nominee that the election is “rigged” against him and that his backers should monitor polling locations in “certain areas.” Trump’s allegations were a dramatic escalation of the usual partisan warfare over ballot access issues and came as Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) denied a request by Hillary Clinton’s campaign to extend voter registration because of Hurricane Matthew. The storm caused the extension of voter registration deadlines in South Carolina, while officials in Georgia have urged residents in storm-affected areas to register online instead of going to registration centers.

Editorials: From Voting Rights to Voting Wrongs | Jacques Leslie/The New York Times

In August, when a divided Supreme Court let stand an appeals court decision striking down North Carolina’s photo ID requirement for voters, the matter might have seemed settled. The provision, which requires voters to present government-issued photo identification, strikes directly at people who don’t have driver’s licenses — the state’s poor and disabled, young adults and the elderly, and particularly minorities. The Fourth Circuit Court pointed out that the law deliberately targeted African-Americans “with almost surgical precision,” and deemed it unconstitutional. Yet more than a month after the appellate court ruling and days after the Supreme Court decision, election officials in North Carolina’s Alamance County sent packets to newly registered voters advising them on one page that photo ID was still required and on another page that it wasn’t.

Indiana: State Police expand vote fraud probe to 57 counties | Associated Press

Indiana State Police said on Thursday that they have expanded an investigation of possible voter registration fraud to 57 of the state’s 92 counties. The investigation expanded from nine counties state police said they were investigating on Tuesday. Capt. Dave Bursten, state police spokesman, provided no details on the reason for the expansion. The announcement came about an hour after Patriot Majority USA, a group that runs the Indiana Voter Registration Project that is under investigation in the nine counties named Tuesday, said it asked the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division to look into whether the investigation is an attempt to suppress black votes.

National: States Keep Weaseling Around Court Orders Blocking GOP Voting Restrictions | TPM

After a spree of favorable court rulings that softened or blocked Republican-passed voting restrictions, voting rights advocates are engaged in a new phase of trench warfare with a mere month left before November’s election and early voting in some places already underway. There was no time for civil rights groups to rest on their laurels after winning the high-profile legal challenges. In many states, such rulings were met with attempts to undermine or circumvent court orders meant to make it easier to vote. “You take a step back and it’s really appalling,” said Dale Ho, the director of the ACLU’s Voting Rights Project who has been involved in many of the legal challenges to state voting restrictions. “I mean the Department of Justice and other groups, we have all won the cases … you would have thought we would have been finished with this whole thing, when, up until Election Day, we have to stay on these people,” Ho told TPM. At times, it’s hard to pin down whether issues red states have faced in implementing court orders have been motivated by bureaucratic incompetence or something worse. But the pattern is undeniable. In almost every state where voting rights advocates have scored a major legal victory in recent months, they have had to threaten to drag state officials back into court over the shoddy job election administrators have done following the rulings.

North Carolina: Voter suppression’s last stand: North Carolina’s new Jim Crow counties | InsightUS

In the wake of a federal court decision overturning North Carolina’s “monster voter suppression law,” the NC-GOP’s executive director issued a call for “party-line changes to early voting” by the state’s Republican-controlled county boards of elections. Our review of the state’s early voting plan for this year finds that many boards did just the opposite. Still, a defiant band of renegades – the state’s New Jim Crow counties – did answer that call with cuts disproportionately falling on minority voters and promising election day chaos. But voting rights advocates are fighting back. The Supreme Court’s 2013 Shelby County v. Holder decision overturned a key protection of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), instantly transforming North Carolina into the epicenter of the nationwide battle over minority voting rights. Within weeks of that decision (which freed the state from VRA’s requirement for federal oversight of changes to its election practices) North Carolina’s Republican-controlled General Assembly passed, and Gov. Pat McCrory signed into law, the state’s “monster voter suppression bill,” HB589. The law slashed early voting days, imposed a cumbersome voter ID requirement, and ended voter registration during the early voting period, among many other restrictions.

Editorials: What’s the Matter with Kansas: The Voting Edition | Ciara Torres-Spelliscy/Jurist

Here’s the background of the Newby case. Kansas, Georgia and Alabama have been trying to make voting harder for voters through a series of restrictive voter ID laws. Another approach of these states has deployed is forcing voters to produce documentary evidence that they are American citizens when they register to vote. Asking for documentary proof of citizenship may sound reasonable enough, at first blush, but this runs afoul of the federal “motor voter” law which bars states from asking for additional information when voters register to vote using a standard federal form. The whole point of the motor voter law (whose formal name is National Voter Registration Act of 1993), was to make it easier for eligible Americans to register to vote when they were at the local DMV. While the legislators who pass these restrictive voting laws may think they are barring non-citizens from voting, instead these laws can disenfranchise regular Americans, especially those who were born at home instead of a hospital. These Americans may find it difficult, or well neigh impossible, to produce documentation of their birth proving that they are who they know they are: American citizens.

Kansas: Appeals court rules against Kobach in voting rights case | Associated Press

Thousands of prospective voters in Kansas who did not provide citizenship documents will be able to vote in the November election under a federal appeals court ruling late Friday that upheld a judge’s order. The decision from the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals affirms lower court’s May order forcing Kansas to register more than 20,000 voters, a number that is expected to swell to 50,000 by the time of the November elections. It noted that the preliminary injunction serves the public interest. The 10th Circuit ruled “no constitutional doubt arises” that federal law prohibits Kansas from requiring citizenship documents from people who register to vote at motor vehicle office. It added that its reasoning would be more fully explained in a forthcoming order.

Georgia: Elections Probe Exposes ‘Assault On Voting Rights’ | News One

An investigation into Georgia’s Election Administration claims that state officials at the highest levels have engaged in a “long-term assault on voting rights.” The report by Allied Progress – a national non-profit group – found that officials were systematically making it more difficult for minorities, the elderly, disabled, and low-income voters to cast ballots.The scathing report accuses Georgia’s Secretary of State and Governor of pushing suppression efforts, which include: Strict voter ID requirements, Proof of citizenship, Reduced early voting, and Felon voting right restrictions. Karl Frisch, Executive Director of Allied Progress, joined Roland Martin on NewsOne Now and said, “You’ve got an election administration process from the top on down to the bottom where people have admitted to their partisan motivation and when they thought no one was looking, they sometimes say in public or on social media absolutely racially abhorrent things.” By Frisch’s account, Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp said, “If minorities get registered to vote, they could beat Republicans.” He continued, “As if it would be a bad thing for minorities to get registered to vote.”

Kansas: Judge extends order to ensure thousands can vote in November | The Wichita Eagle

A Shawnee County judge has issued an order that should ensure that thousands of people are able to vote in state and local elections this November. Judge Larry Hendricks previously issued a preliminary order that people who registered to vote at the DMV could vote in the August primary regardless of whether they had provided proof of citizenship. He has now extended that order through the Nov. 8 general election. He has also amended his order to require that Secretary of State Kris Kobach, the defendant in the case, ensure that these 18,000 voters are given timely notice by local election offices that they qualify to vote in federal, state and local races in the general election. Kobach will face a contempt hearing this week in a separate federal case over allegations that he has failed to ensure these voters are registered and informed of their status.

Editorials: Courts need to protect rights of Kansas voters because Kris Kobach certainly isn’t | The Kansas City Star

In court after court, judges are being asked to protect the voting rights of thousands of Kansas citizens this year. And in case after case, the courts are coming down on the side of letting those Kansans participate in elections — despite the misguided efforts of Secretary of State Kris Kobach to keep them out of voting booths. Just this week, a U.S. Court of Appeals panel upheld an earlier ruling that Kansas couldn’t prevent citizens from voting because they didn’t provide proof of citizenship when registering. The most compelling reason offered by the court was that Kobach and other supporters of this tactic had provided far too little proof that any fraudulent voting was going on. That legal case comes on top of two others swirling around Kobach, including a potentially chilling one for his political career, which involves a contempt of court accusation.

Kansas: Judge extends voting rights for those registered at motor vehicle offices | Reuters

A Kansas judge extended voting rights through the Nov. 8 election of about 17,500 people who registered to vote at motor vehicle offices, court documents showed on Tuesday in one of the cases highlighting a political battle over identification laws enacted in Republican-led states. The ruling impacts people who submitted voter applications through Kansas motor vehicle offices but failed to provide proof of U.S. citizenship. The ruling by Judge Larry Hendricks of the third judicial court in Shawnee, Kansas, extends the temporary injunction he issued last month. Under a state law that took effect in 2013, they were required to present a document such as a birth certificate. The judge’s ruling made on Friday said that the Kansas Secretary of State, Kris Kobach, must instruct election officials to allow the around 17,500 residents to “…vote for all offices on the ballot and to count all the votes cast on that ballot.”

Editorials: Voting Rights: Will Court Protections Deliver? | Allegra Chapman/The American Prospect

The electoral dirty work done by dozens of state legislatures in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2013 decision Shelby County v. Holder is the focus of determined legal challenges by voting-rights advocates, and decisions are coming down at a dizzying pace. Not every court involved has come down in favor of voters, but there’s encouraging evidence that judges, including conservatives, recognize state laws purportedly passed to ensure “voting integrity” for what they really are: suppressive tactics. Following the Supreme Court’s decision in Shelby County, state legislators representing nearly half the country rolled back effective reforms and erected new barriers to voting. It was a throwback to the era before the 1960s, when Jim Crow laws finally triggered passage of the Voting Rights Act (VRA).

Editorials: The Success of the Voter Fraud Myth | The New York Times

How does a lie come to be widely taken as the truth? The answer is disturbingly simple: Repeat it over and over again. When faced with facts that contradict the lie, repeat it louder. This, in a nutshell, is the story of claims of voting fraud in America — and particularly of voter impersonation fraud, the only kind that voter ID laws can possibly prevent. Last week, a Washington Post-ABC News poll found that nearly half of registered American voters believe that voter fraud occurs “somewhat” or “very” often. That astonishing number includes two-thirds of people who say they’re voting for Donald Trump and a little more than one-quarter of Hillary Clinton supporters. Another 26 percent of American voters said that fraud “rarely” occurs, but even that characterization is off the mark. Just 1 percent of respondents gave the answer that comes closest to reflecting reality: “Never.” As study after study has shown, there is virtually no voter fraud anywhere in the country. The most comprehensive investigation to date found that out of one billion votes cast in all American elections between 2000 and 2014, there were 31 possible cases of impersonation fraud. Other violations — like absentee ballot fraud, multiple voting and registration fraud — are also exceedingly rare. So why do so many people continue to believe this falsehood?

Kansas: With proof of citizenship voting law under siege, Kobach battles on multiple fronts | Topeka Capital-Journal

Kris Kobach made his way around the room without breaking a sweat. Having just finished debating a KU adjunct professor for an hour over his signature voting laws at the Dole Institute of Politics on the university’s campus Tuesday night, the Kansas secretary of state didn’t drop his smile. He fielded questions during a question-and-answer session, including a query that implied Hillary Clinton’s campaign had rigged electronic voting machines during her race against Bernie Sanders. He listened as a woman spoke with him about immigration and an out-of-town camera crew followed his moves. The frenzied pace of Kobach’s evening mirrors his public life at the moment. Kansas’ proof of citizenship voting law, championed by Kobach, is being challenged in multiple courts, and he’s flown across the country to defend it before judges. Those efforts have so far been largely unsuccessful. The state’s law that requires individuals to produce documents such as a birth certificate to register to vote has suffered multiple blows in court. The latest ruling averse to Kobach came just a week ago.

National: Polling places become battleground in U.S. voting rights fight | Reuters

Louis Brooks, 87, has walked to cast a vote at his neighborhood polling place in Georgia’s predominantly black Lincoln Park neighborhood for five decades. But not this year. Brooks says he will not vote in the presidential election for the first time he can remember after local officials moved the polling station more than 2 miles (3 km) away as part of a plan to cut the number of voting sites in Upson County. “I can’t get there. I can’t drive, and it’s too far to walk,” said Brooks, a black retired mill worker and long-time Democratic Party supporter. He said he does not know how to vote by mail and doesn’t know anyone who can give him a ride. A Reuters survey found local governments in nearly a dozen, mostly Republican-dominated counties in Georgia have adopted plans to reduce the number of voting stations, citing cost savings and efficiency.

Kansas: Local officials must identify Kansas voters affected by ruling | The Wichita Eagle

Kansas county election offices are sorting through thousands of records to identify voters affected by a recent federal court order, according to Secretary of State Kris Kobach. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit blocked Kansas and two other states from requiring proof of citizenship from people who register to vote using the federal form. Kobach said the state’s voter database does not differentiate between people who register with the federal form and the state form, so local election officers will have to physically go through paper records of people who tried to register since January to determine which voters were affected by the ruling. He estimated the number of people affected would be between 200 and 400 statewide. The state began requiring voters to provide proof of citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport, when they register to vote in 2013. Before this year, federal form registrants were allowed to cast ballots in federal elections regardless of whether they provided proof of citizenship.

Kansas: Kobach, Johnson exchange blows in voter law debate | Topeka Capital-Journal

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach claimed Tuesday night to be a national leader in voter security by championing adoption of laws requiring proof of citizenship to register, photograph identification to cast a ballot and mail-in ballot restrictions. Lawyer Mark Johnson, sitting to Kobach’s right at the Dole Institute of Politics, said the Republican secretary of state was a central advocate for reform of voting law, undoubtedly popular, that ought to be declared unconstitutional for serving as a deterrent to participation in elections. With the legal adversaries eager to joust, the point-counterpoint on U.S. election law was set in motion during a Constitution Day program inspired by allegations of voter suppression and claims of newfound election integrity. “