New Law Challenges Voters Rights

Here’s one I didn’t see coming this soon. The soon to be minted legislators in Kansas are going after voter ID.

Specifically, according to the Lawrence Journal, Secretary of State-elect Kris Kobach (R) wants to require voters to show a photo ID in order to vote. Already a coalition of voting rights groups has formed to fight this guy: the Kansas Voter coalition includes “the Kansas State NAACP, the Kansas League of Women Voters, the Kansas chapter of the National Organization for Women, the Kansas Equality Coalition, the Kansas chapter of the ACLU and several other groups.” (The fact that no Latino civil rights groups are mentioned, or relegated to the “other groups” category speaks loudly of the need for Latino advocacy in Kansas.)

But Governor-elect Sam Brownback, a Republican, is in Kobach’s corner.

Voter ID has been challenged relentlessly by civil and voting rights groups across the country, including MALDEF and LULAC, because it infringes on the rights of minority and poor voters who may not have an ID: drivers license and such. Also, the measure imposes a cost-a fee for the ID-on suffrage, which is tantamount to a poll tax.

The proponents of the law say it will eliminate voter fraud; that old, transparent hag of an excuse.  The LJ reports that the Voter coalition sees it differently:

“The coalition said that of 10 million votes cast in Kansas over the past six years, there have been six reported cases of alleged voter fraud, and one was prosecuted successfully.
‘You statistically have a better chance of being stricken twice by lightning than of encountering a genuine act of voter fraud in Kansas,’ the coalition stated.”

The new legislature and governor in Kansas take office on January 10.