The Topeka-Capitol Journal reports that a Kansas judge ruled on Friday on the motion for preliminary injunction filed by the ACLU in Belenky v. Kobach. Theis backs Kobach over ACLU in voter ID challenge:
Shawnee County District Court Judge Franklin Theis cleared the way Friday for Kansas to use a dual voting system to help enforce its proof-of-citizenship rule for new voters, suggesting that doing otherwise could taint the state’s August primary election.
The judge’s ruling was a victory for Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a conservative Republican who champions the citizenship rule as an anti-election fraud measure. Critics contend it will suppress the vote.
Theis rejected the American Civil Liberties Union’s request to block a policy Kobach outlined last month in instructing county officials on handling ballots from voters who registered using a national form that does not require providing a birth certificate, passport or some other documentation of their U.S. citizenship. Kobach advised counties to set aside the ballots and count only their votes in congressional races.
The ACLU sought to force election officials to count all votes from such ballots. The group initially sued Kobach last year on behalf of two voters and the gay-rights group Equality Kansas over the possibility of a dual system, arguing that Kobach has no legal authority to do it. The group filed a request last month for a temporary injunction.
The national form has voters sign a statement that they are U.S. citizens, without requiring papers. Kansas and Arizona sued the federal government to force it to add specific instructions for their states on their proof-of-citizenship requirements. That case is before a federal appeals court, leaving the treatment of voters registering with the national form in flux.
Most Kansas voters register with the state’s form, which requires them to provide citizenship papers.
Theis said he could see problems in the Aug. 5 primary if he granted the ACLU’s request. If the federal courts sided with Kansas and Arizona, he said, there would be no way to go back and remove the small number of potentially illegal votes from the totals.
[The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments in Kobach v. U.S. Election Assistance Commission on August 25, 2014, after the Kansas primary, and the day before Arizona’s primary election.]
“There are some cases where the cure is worse than the disease, and I think what you’re asking me to do would create a mess that couldn’t be fixed,” Theis said in court.
The registrations of more than 19,500 prospective Kansas voters are on hold because they haven’t yet documented their citizenship. Kobach said in court Friday that probably fewer than 200 of them used the federal form to register.
The judge directed Kobach to instruct election officials to notify the small group of voters that if they didn’t provide proof of citizenship, only the votes in congressional races would be counted.
But otherwise, the judge said, “What he’s done is not unreasonable and not unfair.”
However, Theis still could consider the ACLU’s claim that a dual voting system violates some voters’ right to equal legal protection.
Wait, are you saying the judge did not consider 14th Amendment equal protection claims? This judge is OK with U.S. citizens being deprived of their franchise to vote, one of the privileges and immunities of U.S. citizenship protected by the 14th Amendment from state deprivation, because (according to Kobach) “fewer than 200” voters are disenfranchised?
So what exactly is the minimally acceptable number of U.S. citizens who may be deprived of their franchise to vote by their state government? 200 voters? 2,000 voters? 20,000 voters? Simply because they used a federal voter registration form approved by an act of Congress?
This is why we need a constitutional amendment which makes it clear that the right to vote is a fundamental constitutional right, which would subject these GOP voter suppression efforts to the strict scrutiny standard of constitutional review. Under this standard, this judge’s ruling is clear error.
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And if pigs had wings they could fly. There is nothing wrong with the 14th Amendment as it is written. You’re just not happy because a Judge doesn’t see it your way. A new Amendment wouldn’t change that because another judge coulds simply imterpret it differently than you once again. That is the problem with creating a “Holy Judiciary” from whom all answers are sought. Judges are human beings and are filled with biases and opinions that affect their rulings. Whenever they speak from on high, someone is upset with their finding.
Oh, and the way politics are today, good luck getting a Constitutional Amendment going anywhere.