Print edition: 
State lawmakers shouldn’t go along with Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s overreaching proposal to fight the negligible problem of voter fraud. But if they do, they must ensure their efforts don’t end up disenfranchising eligible Kansas voters.
And they should ask some real questions about Kobach’s Secure and Fair Elections Act, including whether the state can afford it and whether the secretary of state needs a prosecutor’s powers.
The secretary of state has a lengthy list of statutory duties, and the state already has an attorney general and lots of county prosecutors. The fact that the new secretary of state is an attorney obsessed with potential voter fraud is a bad reason to redefine the office permanently, especially during a state budget crisis.
So far, though, Kobach’s bill appears to have the solid support of the GOPled Legislature and Gov. Sam Brownback. The majority of Kansans are behind him, too, judging from the latest SurveyUSA poll, sponsored by KWCH, Channel 12: Of those polled, 83 percent said proof of citizenship should be required to register to vote for the first time, and 78 percent said would-be voters should have to show a photo ID. Kobach’s bill includes both requirements.
But the Kansas Voter Coalition — which represents groups including the Kansas chapters of the NAACP and the League of Women Voters — raises some good points that deserve thorough consideration by the Legislature, including problems that the bill’s proof-of-citizenship requirement may create for women who’ve changed their legal names.
And though it’s good that Kobach has included provisions to reduce the potential burden of needing a government-issued ID — by letting voters 65 or older use expired IDs and letting the poor obtain ID cards and copies of birth certificates at no cost — those provisions raise new questions. How much would the free documents and other implementation cost taxpayers? Because the ID requirement still would carry a cost for some would-be voters, does that make it an unconstitutional poll tax?
It’s also a red flag that Kobach likens the SAFE Act’s significance to that of the Arizona ID-check law he helped write. According to the Wall Street Journal, that law sparked more than 1,000 legal filings and, in just a twomonth period, saw the state pay more than $440,000 in legal fees. Can Kansas afford one of Kobach’s laws?
Going forward, Kansans also should expect some leadership from Brownback on this issue. He spoke movingly in his State of the State speech about the state’s obligations to Kansans on the margins or in poverty, and he once argued passionately against demonizing illegal immigrants. Does Brownback truly share the view that, as Kobach’s campaign website claimed, “in Kansas the illegal registration of alien voters has become pervasive”?
Given that voter fraud is a virtually nonexistent problem in Kansas, is this bill really necessary — for more, that is, than Kobach’s rising profiles as a conservative TV talking head and the nation’s foremost author of laws targeting illegal immigrants?
