Over the last five years, perhaps no elected official in the country has been more aggressive in placing limits on voting and registration than Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach.
He authored a provision that created a two-tiered voting system under which some Kansans could cast a ballot for their president but not their governor or any other statewide official. On Jan. 15 a Kansas district court judge struck down the measure, calling it a violation of the state’s constitution and sharply rebuked Kobach, writing, “No such authority exists at all … to encumber the voting process as he has done here.”
His proposal requiring Kansans to show proof of citizenship to register to vote and a photo ID to cast a ballot became law in 2011. Within a year, Kobach, a former chairman of the Kansas Republican Party, persuaded 14 other mostly Republican states to participate in a voter registration database, Interstate Crosscheck — created, administered and funded by his office — to purge voter rolls of people registered in multiple states. The program’s data analysis, however, has been reported to disproportionately flag legitimate minority voters who simply have first and last names in common.