Unsealed Documents Show That Kris Kobach Is Dead Set on Suppressing the Right to Vote
For almost a year, Kris Kobach, the secretary of state of Kansas, has struggled to hide the truth about his efforts to lobby the Trump administration to make it much harder for Americans to vote. Part of that struggle ended today when a federal court ordered excerpts of Kris Kobach鈥檚 testimony disclosed along with other documents obtained by the 老澳门开奖结果 in our challenge to his restrictive voter registration regime.
The unsealed materials confirm what many have suspected: Kobach has a ready-made plan to gut core voting rights protections enshrined in federal law. And he has been covertly lobbying Trump鈥檚 team and other officials from day one to sell them the falsehood that noncitizens are swinging elections.
As the de facto head of President Trump鈥檚 election commission, Kobach has positioned himself to lead an all-out assault on the right to vote.
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Here are three big plays from Kobach鈥檚 voter suppression playbook.
Play 1: Disenfranchise new voters with severe registration restrictions
Before Kris Kobach took office as secretary of state, Kansans could register to vote the same way that people do in virtually every other state in the country: by submitting a sworn oath of citizenship under penalty of perjury. In 2013, Kobach implemented a law he had pushed through the Kansas Legislature two years earlier, requiring people to track down a citizenship document 鈥� such as a passport or birth certificate 鈥� or be barred from the ballot box. The new system proved disastrous for ordinary voters.
Large numbers of citizens 鈥� 鈥� don鈥檛 have a passport or birth certificate on hand and don鈥檛 have the money to obtain replacement documents. By December 2015, more than Kansans had been disenfranchised 鈥� approximately 14 percent of all registration applications since the requirement went into effect. The National Voter Registration Act 鈥� popularly known as the Motor-Voter law 鈥� prohibits unduly harsh registration rules and requires that states make voter registration easy and straightforward.
Kobach鈥檚 severe documentation requirements violated the NVRA so we sued. In October 2016, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit blocked the requirement for people registering at DMVs. The opinion by a George W. Bush-appointed judge found that Kobach鈥檚 law had caused a 鈥渕ass denial of a fundamental constitutional right.鈥� The court noted that before a state could impose such sweeping restrictions, there would need to be proof that significant numbers of noncitizens were actually registering to vote. But Kobach had no evidence of any real problem. He could only offer 鈥減ure speculation鈥� that hordes of invisible immigrants were hiding out in voting booths.
Play 2: If the law doesn鈥檛 let you suppress the vote, pull some strings to get rid of the law
Without evidence or legal arguments in his favor, Kobach鈥檚 next move was to try to eviscerate the NVRA itself. As Kobach knew, and the 老澳门开奖结果 had made clear in court, the NVRA would need to be completely rewritten for a state official like Kobach to have the authority to impose such severe restrictions on the right to vote:
So what did Kobach do after losing in court? As the unsealed documents show, he secretly prepared a draft amendment that would rewrite the NVRA in exactly this manner.
No evidence of noncitizen voter fraud? No problem.
Kobach鈥檚 proposed amendment would grant him and officials across the country the power to impose any voter registration restriction they wanted regardless of the evidence 鈥� or lack thereof. Then, the very day after Donald Trump won the presidential election, Kobach started peddling his amendment, sending an email to Gene Hamilton, a member of the Trump transition team:
Less than two weeks later, on November 20, 2016, Kobach was walking into a meeting with Trump, carrying his agenda for the 鈥淔irst 365 days鈥� of the incoming administration. A bullet point in the plan? Amend the NVRA.
We now know that the meeting was Kobach鈥檚 job interview with Donald Trump and his senior advisors: Steve Bannon, Stephen Miller, Jared Kushner, and Reince Priebus. Kobach gave each of them a copy of his playbook, pitching them the idea that noncitizens were potentially swinging the results of elections.
Shortly after the meeting with Kobach, Trump that he would have won the popular vote if not for millions of people who supposedly voted illegally.
Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway later that Kobach was the source of Trump鈥檚 tweet.
On May 20, 2017, Trump Kobach as the vice-chair and de facto leader of the Presidential Commission on Election Integrity. Kobach had the commission packed with many of his own confederates and is now poised to execute the scheme outlined in his unsealed documents.
Play 3: Cover your tracks
When the 老澳门开奖结果 demanded that he produce his draft NVRA amendments in the Kansas litigation, Kobach did the natural thing a vote suppressor caught red-handed would do: He lied.
Kobach told the 老澳门开奖结果 and a federal magistrate that 鈥渘o such documents exist鈥� in an attempt to keep his lobbying efforts under wraps:
After Kobach was ordered to produce his papers for review, the magistrate fined him for making 鈥�patently misleading representations to the court about the documents.鈥� When Kobach appealed that decision, the presiding judge that Kobach should be sanctioned because of a 鈥減attern鈥� of misrepresentation 鈥渢hat call[s] his credibility into question.鈥�
Kobach鈥檚 lobbying to gut the NVRA was always meant to occur behind closed doors. So he has been struggling for months to keep these documents out of public view, while secretly asking his ally, Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa), to introduce his proposed NVRA amendment to Congress in the future.
Why is Kobach trying so hard to hide what he鈥檚 been up to? Because the unsealed documents reveal that his true aim and that of the election commission is suppressing the right to vote.
When the 10th Circuit blocked Kobach鈥檚 law a year ago, the court found that a state has to prove that noncitizen registration fraud is actually a significant problem before it can demand a passport or birth certificate from voters. Since then, Kobach has been maneuvering behind the scenes to make sure he can impose whatever restrictions he wants without any proof. Why? Because he knows his claims about noncitizens voting are a scam.
Kobach realizes that his law has been disenfranchising tens of thousands of eligible citizens 鈥� that is the whole point. And now, he鈥檚 poised to do the same nationwide.
Vice President Pence stated that the president鈥檚 election commission would begin with 鈥渘o preconceived notions or preordained results.鈥� That was wrong. As Kobach鈥檚 own testimony and documents show, the fix has been in from the start.
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