Paul Davis files lawsuit against Kris Kobach over purging of suspended voters list

Paul Davis filed a lawsuit in federal court Wednesday against Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach over a new rule that will remove names from the suspended voters list.

Davis, a Lawrence attorney who ran an unsuccessful campaign for governor in 2014, said federal law prohibits Kobach from “purging voters.”

The state enacted a requirement that beginning in 2013, prospective voters must provide proof of citizenship, such as a passport or birth certificate, when they register to vote – a policy Kobach championed.

Since the law went into effect, nearly 37,000 voters have been left in suspended registration status. For perspective, Davis lost to Gov. Sam Brownback in the last election by fewer than 33,000 votes. Davis said he didn’t think proof of citizenship affected the outcome of the election.

Kobach has moved forward with a new rule, set to take effect on Friday, that would remove a person’s name from the list if he or she failed to show proof of citizenship after 90 days. Kobach has said the policy will save county election offices money, but his critics accuse him of trying to purge the list.

Davis and Will Lawrence, an attorney who worked on his campaign, are representing Alder Cromwell, 18, and Cody Keener, 21, two Douglas County residents on the suspended voter list. They assert that the National Voter Registration Act and the 14th Amendment’s guarantee of due process preclude Kobach from removing their names from the list. The suit also seeks to throw out the proof of citizenship requirement entirely.

“These are fundamental constitutional rights that Kansas citizens have, and anytime somebody who is associated with the government is trying to impair a right, I think it’s imperative that we speak up,” Davis said. “There are a lot of people on this list. This is not something that exists in any other state of the country where over 36,000 people who went through the process of registering to vote could be simply removed from the voter rolls if the secretary of state is allowed to proceed.”

Kobach disputed that the Kansas rule violates federal law.

“Mr. Davis apparently (is) unaware that the United States Supreme Court recently held that the states have the sole constitutional power, free from federal interference, to enforce their requirement that voters be United States citizens,” Kobach wrote in an e-mail.

The secretary of state also noted that Davis voted for the proof-of-citizenship requirement as a member of the Kansas House, albeit without the 90-day rule. In 2011, Davis voted for the SAFE Act on final passage after the bill came back from the Senate.

An Eagle analysis, published in Sunday’s print edition, found that more than 40 percent of the voters on the suspended list are under the age of 30.

“Both of these people are young folks who had registered to vote for the first time,” Davis said of the plaintiffs.

Craig McCullah, public information officer for the Secretary of State’s Office, said in an e-mail that the “lawsuit that Cromwell and Keener have filed against Secretary Kobach does not represent the reality of the law.”

McCullah argued that the prospective voters on the suspended list are not considered part of the state’s voting rolls and therefore removing their names would not violate the National Voter Registration Act.

“In order to be added to the voting rolls to begin with one must complete the registration process; if the citizen has started but not completed their registration within 90 days they will have to begin the process over again which involves filling out a half page form and providing proof of citizenship,” McCullah said.

Kobach seemed to question Davis’ motives for filing the suit.

“This case is going nowhere in court,” he wrote in the e-mail. “It appears to be an effort by Mr. Davis to make himself politically relevant again.”

Davis confirmed that he had talked to representatives from the Kansas Democratic Party about the lawsuit but emphasized he was not working on behalf of the party.

Kerry Gooch, executive director of the Kansas Democratic Party, voiced support for the lawsuit in an e-mail.

“Today’s lawsuit is an effort to prevent Kris Kobach from preventing even more Kansans from voting. There are real consequences to our democracy when a politician like Secretary Kobach denies citizens their basic freedoms,” Gooch said. “Kansans deserve a secretary of state focused on helping people across the state vote – not one obsessed with putting up road blocks and preventing law-abiding citizens from participating in our democracy.”

Lawrence argued that since federal law has no proof-of-citizenship requirement, his clients should not be barred, at the very least, from voting in the upcoming federal election for president and Congress in 2016.

Before Kobach instituted the new rule, voters could complete their registrations up to Election Day if they provided proof of citizenship. Kobach’s rule would mean that a voter would have to restart the registration process from scratch.

“There’s no doubt that there’s a lot of people out there who have registered to vote and have no idea they’re on this list,” Davis said. “And many of them – unless we’re successful here – are going to show up to vote, and they’re going to find that they’re not on the voter rolls and they can’t vote.”

If someone discovers they are on the list, they should contact their county election office. A passport or birth certificate may be used to provide proof of citizenship.

This story was originally published September 30, 2015 at 5:20 PM with the headline "Paul Davis files lawsuit against Kris Kobach over purging of suspended voters list."