Kris Kobach settled his case with the ACLU today, and it could best be summarized as complete capitulation.
www.kansascity.com/…
Kobach reached a deal with American Civil Liberties Union lawyers to clear up the status of thousands of Kansas voters who had registered at motor vehicle offices.
That was the right move to make, though months late.
Now, around 20,000 voters should have full confidence they will be duly registered and legally able to go to the polls for the Nov. 8 elections.
Kobach had been scheduled to appear in court tomorrow on a contempt of court charge that despite previous rulings he had not effectively moved away from a dual track voting system which required voters to produce a series of documents and, in some cases requiring them to go back and register again.
This is due to the fact the state of Kansas would not accept the Federal “Motor Voter” form in order to vote in local elections without extra documents. Voters found that failure to turn in those documents could mark them as suspended.. or out of the system.
As part of the settlement, Kobach will direct county election officials to notify voters who had been waiting on clearance to vote that they are properly registered and can vote in the appropriate local, state and federal races come November 8th.
Kris Kobach has been arguing for sometime that he was working on securing the vote due to issues of voter fraud. After calling for prosecutorial powers over voter fraud cases, Kobach has brought forward very few charges. To date, he has primarily charged elderly Republicans, including those who became confused whether or not their absentee ballot in Kansas would be valid after they moved to another state before election day.
The settlement allows the Secretary of State to avoid a court hearing on whether or not he was in contempt of court, short circuiting any plan to put Kris Kobach at risk of sitting in a jail cell. The residents of Kansas, however, will likely be more appreciative of the fact that 20,000 voters — and now all who register by the motor voter form — will be able to vote in all races in November.
As voter registration advocates argued that voter registration should take “less than two minutes”, for the first time in years, that statement is finally true in Kansas again.
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