Fish v. Kobach (Kansas voter rights lawsuit)

[Snowboarder_Bo]

AP story here:

The case headed to trial starting Tuesday has national implications for voting rights as Republicans pursue laws they say are aimed at preventing voter fraud but that critics contend disenfranchise minorities and college students who tend to vote Democratic and who may not have such documentation readily available. Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who is running for governor and was part of Trump’s now-disbanded commission on voter fraud , has long championed such laws and is defending a Kansas requirement that people present documentary proof of citizenship — such as a birth certificate, naturalization papers or a passport — when they register to vote.

Courts have temporarily blocked Kobach from fully enforcing the Kansas law, with the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver calling it “a mass denial of a fundamental constitutional right.”

Dale Ho, director for the Voting Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union said the case is about what national standards the U.S. will have for voter registration.

“It is also a case about this false narrative of noncitizens participating in elections — which Kobach has said for years has been happening in large amounts — and now we are going to see his evidence,” Ho said. “His evidence is going to be put on the stand in open court for a federal judge to rule on, and I think the public will finally get to see how little evidence he actually has.”

The ACLU has a page about the suit.

I’m looking forward to this like it was a thrash band I hadn’t seen in concert before.

[Railer13]

Being relatively new here, I don’t know how much discussion Kobach has generated, but I can offer a little background.

Kris Kobach was elected Kansas Secretary of State in 2010, campaigning largely on voter fraud. He led the charge to get the law passed that’s being challenged in the lawsuit, and he was re-elected in 2014. In 2015, the Kansas legislature passed a law that authorized his office to prosecute election fraud cases.

In the first two years with this power, Kobach filed 12 voter fraud cases, and was successful in prosecuting 9 of them. One successful prosecution was of a legal immigrant who was allowed to register to vote, and then did vote, during the process to attain his citizenship, but before he was granted citizenship. The other 8 were people who voted in elections in both Kansas and another state, because, in each case, these folks owned property in both states. Not exactly a docket full of fraudulent voting by illegal immigrants or dead people.

Kobach has filed some additional charges, according to this article. I haven’t heard anything regarding the disposition of these cases.

Kobach is running for governor of Kansas and is one of the Republican front-runners.

[E-DUB]

Is it illegal for persons with dual state residence to cast ballots in both states provided (and this would basically be impossible to know) they do not cast ballots in both for federal offices?

[Chronos]

I expect that that would be a matter of state law, not federal, so it’s going to have 1,225 different answers.

[Railer13]

@E-DUB

Is it illegal for persons with dual state residence to cast ballots in both states provided (and this would basically be impossible to know) they do not cast ballots in both for federal offices?

It’s my understanding that one can only vote in the precinct where one’s ‘primary residence’ is located. If you own homes in two different states, you are to declare which one is your primary residence and vote in that precinct.

However, I cannot locate a cite that specifically declares the above to be federal law.

[Shoeless]

It’s funny how with all this talk from the GOP about rampant voter fraud in recent years, they’ve only managed to successfully prosecute about a dozen cases. Certainly not enough to swing an election by any stretch of the imagination. And I wonder how many of Kobach’s cases were against people voting Republican?

[Little_Nemo]

@Shoeless

It’s funny how with all this talk from the GOP about rampant voter fraud in recent years, they’ve only managed to successfully prosecute about a dozen cases. Certainly not enough to swing an election by any stretch of the imagination.

The more interesting question is how many people who were legally eligible to vote were unable to do so due to needlessly stringent “anti-fraud” laws.

[Chronos]

To which the standard Republican response is “I dunno, probably not very many, so I’m sure it doesn’t matter”.

[Railer13]

@Little_Nemo

The more interesting question is how many people who were legally eligible to vote were unable to do so due to needlessly stringent “anti-fraud” laws.

According to this article, the ACLU estimates that over 35,000 citizens were blocked from registering to vote between 2013 and 2016. Of course, the same article quotes Kobach as stating that up to 18,000 non-citizens have voted in Kansas. Evidently he hasn’t found all of them just yet.

@Shoeless

And I wonder how many of Kobach’s cases were against people voting Republican?

Given the fact that almost all these cases involved people from rural Kansas, I’d guess that virtually all of them involved Republican voters.

[septimus]

@Railer13

It’s my understanding that one can only vote in the precinct where one’s ‘primary residence’ is located. If you own homes in two different states, you are to declare which one is your primary residence and vote in that precinct.

You’re not required to own any home at all to vote, but if you do own two you don’t get to arbitrarily declare one of them as “primary” — it must actually be your primary residence, whatever that means.

This became an issue in 2000 when Dick Cheney, a resident of Texas who declared Wyoming to be his "primary residence, illegally(?) received Texas’ electoral votes. Several lawsuits resulted and detailed analyses were tried, despite that Cheney’s ownership of a Wyoming home was never in dispute.

@Railer13

Given the fact that almost all these cases involved people from rural Kansas, I’d guess that virtually all of them involved Republican voters.

What does “virtually all” mean to you? “More than half”? Even in Stanton County, Hillary got almost a quarter as many votes as Trump got. Plus there are implicit and deliberate biases in ID availability.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

Found some info:

U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson must decide whether Kobach has legal authority to demand the documentation. The lawsuit requires Kobach to show that Kansas has a “substantial” problem of noncitizens registering to vote and the definition of "substantial’ is the central legal question of the case.

Kobach said his office has been able to document 129 noncitizens who voted or tried to vote since 2000, although documentation earlier to the court had the number at 127. He said that number is “the tip of the iceberg and we know the iceberg is much larger.”

Dale Ho, director for the Voting Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, argued in his opening statement that the law has kept an estimated 22,000 people from voting — most of them young or independent voters. He said of the 127 cases Kobach cited earlier, 43 successfully registered since 2000 and only 11 actually voted, most through clerical errors or misunderstandings. He said even if Kobach’s numbers are true, only 0.007 percent of Kansas’ 1.8 million registered voters should have voted illegally.

.007% certainly doesn’t sound substantial to me.

I admit I’m a little confused over the “testified Monday” in this next part:

Charles Stricker testified Monday that he thought he was registered to vote until he showed up to the polls in 2014. He told the court how he felt confused and embarrassed as he filled out a provisional ballot at a designated table. His vote didn’t count.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reported that Stricker testified he made two trips to the local motor vehicle office on the final day he could register for the 2014 general election. He was initially told he needed additional documentation such as a birth certificate and a piece of mail showing he lives in Kansas. When he returned, nobody asked him to provide the documentation and he left assuming he was registered.

He testified that when he called the Sedgwick County elections office to ask if he could vote in 2016 an employee told him his status was “complicated” pending unresolved legal issues. That experience motivated him to participate in the trial.

“I don’t think the average Kansas citizen should have to sue the secretary of state to get registered to vote,” he said.

[Musicat]

@Railer13

Given the fact that almost all these cases involved people from rural Kansas, I’d guess that virtually all of them involved Republican voters.

Given the fact that Kobach is the prosecutor, and we don’t have all the evidence, can’t we assume that Kobach decided which ones to prosecute? And what is the likelihood that he prosecuted Republican voters? Methinks he might have skipped over those.

[TimeWinder]

@Railer13

Of course, the same article quotes Kobach as stating that up to 18,000 non-citizens have voted in Kansas. Evidently he hasn’t found all of them just yet.

Sure he has. 1 (successfully prosecuted) or 129 or so (claims to have evidence on) is–technically speaking–“up to 18,000”! Just not very far up…

[Railer13]

@Musicat

Given the fact that Kobach is the prosecutor, and we don’t have all the evidence, can’t we assume that Kobach decided which ones to prosecute? And what is the likelihood that he prosecuted Republican voters? Methinks he might have skipped over those.

Good points by both you and **septimus **regarding my assumption. I was basing my guess (and it was just a guess) on the fact that almost everybody I know from rural Kansas votes Republican. Obviously, however, not all rural Kansans do so.

And also a thanks to septimus for clarifying what ‘primary residence’ means.

[Railer13]

Team Kobach not exactly doing an exemplary job thus far:

Still Updating: The Daily Developments Of The Kansas Motor-Voter V. Kobach Trial

[Snowboarder_Bo]

Thanks for the update; that’s a pretty comprehensive article on the day’s events.

[Superdude]

@Railer13

Team Kobach not exactly doing an exemplary job thus far:

http://kcur.org/post/daily-developments-kansas-motor-voter-v-kobach-trial#stream/0

I was going to say they were stepping on their own dicks, but your way is more tactful.

[Railer13]

The stellar defense of Kobach and friends continues. Yesterday, Jesse Richman, a political science professor at Old Dominion University, took the stand. His testimony continued today.

Again, from the aforementioned link:

Tuesday, March 13

On Tuesday, Richman showed more statistical calculations meant to estimate how many non-citizens are on Kansas voter rolls. One such analysis suggested a range of between 10,000 and 60,000 people.

The ACLU continued to attack the methods and credibility of Kobach’s witness, saying 200 political scientists had signed an open letter critical of his work.

They pressed him on how he coded a survey of people whose voter applications had been blocked, which in part included labeling names as foreign if Richman and an assistant didn’t think they sounded like English-speaking people.

Richman replied that wasn’t the only criterion for marking certain names.

An ACLU lawyer asked him whether he would label “Carlos Murguia” foreign, and when Richman replied he probably would, revealed Murguia is a federal judge in that very courthouse.

The ACLU also showed a 2016 video in which Kobach, while speaking with reporters, backs President Trump’s claims that he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton because of millions of illegally cast ballots.

Richman agreed with an ACLU lawyer that his research hasn’t shown this to be true and he doesn’t know of any research that has.

[Johnny_Ace]

@Railer13

The stellar defense of Kobach and friends continues. Yesterday, Jesse Richman, a political science professor at Old Dominion University, took the stand. His testimony continued today…

Apparently Kobach is following the Trumpian philosophy of hiring the Best people.

[Slash1972]

“An ACLU lawyer asked him whether he would label “Carlos Murguia” foreign, and when Richman replied he probably would, revealed Murguia is a federal judge in that very courthouse”

That’s awesome right there.