League of Women Voters, professors propose college course on voter registration

The League of Women Voters and professors at three of the state’s public universities have teamed up to craft a course that will train college students on how to register to vote.

The League unveiled the plan Saturday at a conference at Westminster Presbyterian Church. The effort is a response to changes in Kansas voter registration laws. A disproportionate number of younger people have landed on a list of those whose registrations are suspended because they are incomplete.

Kansas law now requires proof of citizenship for a person to register to vote.

Marge Ahrens, co-president of the League’s Kansas chapter, said the process has become more complex and many young people do not know how to navigate it.

The course, which will be piloted at Washburn, Emporia State and Fort Hays State universities this fall, will teach students how to register themselves and others.

“They can register their friends,” Ahrens said. “If they wish, they can tackle one or two (names) on the suspense list.”

The Eagle reported in September that more than 40 percent of the nearly 37,000 people on the suspended voter list were under 30.

The list has gained national attention in recent weeks as the Secretary of State’s Office moved forward with a new rule that removes a person’s name if he or she fails to provide proof of citizenship, such as a passport or birth certificate, within 90 days.

Secretary of State Kris Kobach has said the proof of citizenship requirement is necessary to prevent voting by noncitizens. He has called 90 days a reasonable deadline, noting that Arizona and Georgia have shorter timelines for their proof of citizenship requirement.

Michael Smith, a political science professor at Emporia State University, told the League on Saturday that research shows that the highest concentrations of suspended voters are in inner-city neighborhoods and college towns, with large numbers of suspended voters living on or near the campuses of the University of Kansas and Kansas State University.

The League hopes that colleges and high schools around the state will adopt the course next year ahead of the 2016 election.

Mark Petersen, a political scientist who developed the course with his colleague Chris Hamilton at Washburn University, said it can be taught in a single day or stretched out over a week.

“The idea is to fit it into the regular curriculum” of a history or political science class, Petersen said.

“This is specifically aimed at understanding Kansas law and how to go about getting properly registered to vote in the state of Kansas,” Petersen said.

Petersen said most college students don’t arrive on campus with a copy of their birth certificate or passport, which impedes their ability to get registered. One of the things he highlights in the course is that students born in Kansas can get a copy of their birth records from the state’s bureau of vital statistics.

“But most people don’t know that and they don’t get told that,” he said.

Cille King, a member of the League, raised concern Saturday that the Secretary of State’s Office is not consistently taking steps of its own to remove people from the list.

She said 60 students at Lawrence’s Free State High School ended up on the list last spring after the League did a registration drive in Lawrence schools.

Election officials are supposed to check regularly if people on the list have birth records on file, but King said months later many of the students’ names were still on the list.

“No way that all of those (kids) were born out of state,” she recalled thinking.

She was right. After the League asked the Secretary of State’s Office to ensure that names were checked against birth records before the 90-day rule went into effect, it was discovered that 40 of the 60 students were born in Kansas, King said, and that 360 people in Douglas County were on the list even though their birth records were on file.

The Sedgwick County Election Office discovered matching birth records for more than 1,700 people on the list earlier this month when it was instructed to check by the Secretary of State’s Office before removing names from the suspended voter list.

Smith said that “things are a little different in other states.” Oregon and California have adopted automatic voter registration laws this year.

Under the California law, which was signed by Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown this month, people will be automatically registered to vote when they obtain a driver’s license or state ID from the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles.

Ahrens said the League would love for Kansas to adopt a similar policy, but in the meantime it will work to register people to vote under the constraints of Kansas law.

This story was originally published October 24, 2015 at 2:51 PM with the headline "League of Women Voters, professors propose college course on voter registration."