Kansas Just Created a Second Class of Voters Who Won’t Be Allowed to Cast Ballots in Some Elections!

Kris Kobach, the Secretary of State for Kansas, has decided to move forward with his two-tiered voting system, reports Right Wing Watch. Kobach’s byzantine plan is a massive headache for anyone trying to understand how it works, and is as inelegant as it is bureaucratic — which is par for the course when dealing with Republicans.

By Kobach’s new system, those citizens who registered with a federal voter registration form but didn’t meet the state’s strict citizen definition would still be allowed to vote in federal elections, but barred from voting in state elections. At time he proposed it, Kobach said that it was a “contingency plan”, in the event that the state lost a lawsuit that sought to require “the federal form used in Kansas to include the state’s proof-of-citizenship requirement.” Kobach has since won that lawsuit, but the decision has nevertheless been stayed via appeal, forcing Kobach to go ahead with the two-tiered system that he had planned.

Kobach’s system is a complicated one that appears to require two different forms — a state and a federal form. The federal form is used as a “proof-of-citizenship” requirement, although only one requires citizenship. As Right Wing Watch noted in 2013:

Kobach has been struggling to implement a new law that he backed requiring voters to present proof of citizenship when registering to vote. As a result of the law, over 17,000 Kansans who registered to vote using a federal form (which doesn’t require proof of citizenship) or used a state form but couldn’t dig up a birth certificate have had their voter registration suspended.
. . .The Eagle explains that if the plan moves forward, Kansas voters will be sorted into three categories, each with separate voting rights. Those who provide proof of citizenship with either a state or federal form will be allowed to vote in all elections. Those who register with a federal form and don’t provide supplemental citizenship proof will be allowed to vote just in federal elections. Meanwhile, Kansans who use the state voter registration form but don’t provide proof of citizenship will remain unable to vote at all.

According to Kobach, the good news is that fewer than 100 Kansas citizens who registered with the form but didn’t give proper proof of citizenship would be given full provisional ballots during the primary elections held on August 5. However, only the votes they cast in the federal election will matter. The bad news, that Kobach seems to be conveniently ignoring, is that 18,000 Kansas citizens who registered with the state form but can’t provide the proper documentation will be barred from voting in either election.

Still, Kobach insists that there’s no disenfranchisement. It’s only 18,000 voters, after all. Imagine how many cases of voter fraud this is going to stop — two, maybe three? It’s totally worth the 18,000 disenfranchised voters. They were probably going to waste their vote on a Democrat anyway.