2018 was the tale of Democratic voters turning out and elections changing things — even in Kansas. It was also the year where efforts to suppress voters was clearly identified and parties pointed it out, calling attention to the insidious practice.
This didn’t sit well with some. Dodge City, Kansas, a majority-minority community in the southwest corner of the state had only one polling center, and it would be located at a distance from the minority community after being moved one time from a familiar location.
In 2016, the head of UFCW in Dodge City offered these words:
I’m asking you, today, I have brought with me to this meeting young members of my community. At the next meeting, I promise to bring twice as many. I ask of you, bring more of you as well. Let’s work together. I am offering you my hand. Take it. Let us do this together. I cannot bring lots of money, but I can bring to the table more than 1,000 US Citizens who will be eager to vote for the first time, to help save our nation and our state.
This did not get better for Ford county.
it would be two years later when the County Clerk would respond very differently to the request for the right to vote:
This comment along with a refusal to provide more voting sites, led the ACLU, the Kansas Democratic Party, the Laura Kelly campaign, and others to put effort into calling attention to Dodge City. The reason you call attention to it isn’t just for the votes that are there, but to highlight the systemic problem with the system.
Today, in a report issued to congress, it is that systemic problem that finds itself being torn to shreds.
The report to congress, covered here by the Topeka Capital Journal, makes the problem plain:
As the county’s chief election officer, Cox unilaterally decided to move the town’s only polling site in anticipation of a construction project she feared could interfere with Election Day traffic. The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas expressed concerns that the new location, located outside city limits and lacking public transportation, would disenfranchise a predominantly Latino community.
The single polling location served 13,000 registered voters.
“That is why ACLU has their panties in a bunch,” Cox wrote in an email exchange with retired county clerk Sharon Seibel.
Backlash over Cox’s decision, churning with racial themes, attracted national attention.
Clerk Cox often deflected the problem by blaming outsiders, attacking those who looked at the issue. This tactic, which says you shouldn’t care about voting rights unless you physically live nearby is another level of privilege that will constantly be used to negatively impact individuals of color and communities that are underrepresented.
in a conversation in 2018 with Alejandro Rangel-Lopez at a Dodge City Rally, I was asked: “how hard is it to do the right thing?”
Good question.