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Trump’s Alien Voter Claim Goes to Court
Kobach rule blocks 1 in 7 New Voters
Could decide 2018 & 2020 Races
By Greg Palast for Alternet
The mainstream media has simply missed the voting rights trial whose
outcome could unleash the newest mass vote suppression weapon, the
invention of Donald Trump’s chief vote suppression tactician, Kris
Kobach of Kansas.
Clip from Palast's film The Best Democracy Money Can Buy
On Tuesday, the trial of the lawsuit by the League of Women Voters
against Kobach, Kansas’ Republican Secretary of State, began in a Kansas
City courtroom. The League has sued to block the state’s law, drafted
by Kobach, requiring all new voters to show proof of citizenship.
Kobach’s law has blocked an astonishing 1 in 7 new registrants from
voting in the state because they did not satisfy his citizenship
paperwork requirement.
The ACLU, which represents the League of Women Voters, has sent in its
top litigators, led by its voting rights director Dale Ho, because of
the nationwide implications of the case. If Kobach’s law is upheld and
spreads to other GOP controlled states, just over one million Americans
could lose their right to vote by 2020.
Oddly, Kobach has chosen a lawyer with little courtroom knowledge—himself.
Judge Julie Robinson was not amused by what many see as a publicity
stunt. Robinson, the chief justice of the federal district for Kansas,
excoriated Kobach for not knowing “Evidence 101,” and curtly coached
Kobach’s amateur team on the correct procedure for cross-examination.
Buffoonish antics in the courtroom drew some laughter. But the partisan
result of Kobach’s law is deadly serious. According to the ACLU’s expert
witness, University of Florida professor Michael McDonald, nearly half
(44.6%) of the voters blocked are young, 18 to 29 years old.
It cannot be lost on Kobach, former Chairman of the Kansas GOP, that
young Americans voted overwhelmingly Democratic, 55% for Clinton and
only 36% for Trump in 2016.
To justify the paper proof-of-citizenship requirement, Kobach told the
court the requirement has blocked 30,000 non-citizens from voting in
Kansas. However, he has been unable to prove that even a single one of
the 35,314 voters blocked by the law is an alien.
Kobach’s Alien Voter Hunt
Just after the 2016 election, Secretary Kobach called me to confirm he
was the source of Donald Trump’s claim that a million aliens voted in
the 2016 election. (Kobach also confirmed it was his idea to force
Mexico to pay for Trump’s border wall.)
Noting to Kobach that he is the nation’s only Secretary of State with
the power to prosecute illegal voters, I asked if he planned mass
arrests of alien voters. (Kobach had claimed on Fox News, for example,
that “50 Somalians are stealing my vote!”)
Kobach told me, “Just wait! Convictions are coming.”
I’ve waited. But so far, his manhunt, begun five years ago, has produced
just a single conviction of a non-citizen voter out of 1.8 million
Kansas registrants. Nevertheless, tens of thousands of Kansans are
blocked because they cannot produce the evidence—an original birth
certificate or passport or naturalization papers—his law requires.
Call From the Prison Parking Lot?
Not surprisingly, lower-income voters are less likely to hold these
documents—and less likely to vote Republican. Voters earning less than
$50,000 per year voted 53% to 41% against Trump.
And no, neither a driver’s license nor a Social Security card proves
citizenship. The alternative, obtaining a birth certificate, can be a
costly paper chase, as plaintiff Donna Bucci testified. Bucci, who gets
by on the limited income she earns working in a local prison cafeteria,
told the court Tuesday that she could not pay both her rent and the
$50-$60 total cost to obtain her birth certificate from Maryland.
Kobach cross-examined her, hoping to get Bucci to admit to simple
laziness. Kobach asked her why she didn’t call during work hours to
arrange a special hearing before a state agency. Bucci replied that no
cell phones are allowed inside prisons. Kobach attacked, asking why she
couldn’t have run to her car during a break and phoned from the parking
lot.
But even if Bucci had reached officials and obtained a hearing date, it
would cost her a day of work, assuming she would be allowed the day off,
to attend the hearing.
Judge Robinson will have to determine whether this bureaucratic
rigmarole constitutes an unfair obstacle to voting. The National Voter
Registration Act permits states to require only the “minimum amount” of
information from a voter.
Up to now, “minimum” has meant checking the box on a registration form
by which you swear, under penalty of imprisonment, that you are a
citizen, and signing your name, to complete the registration form.
Neither Kobach nor his spokeswoman have responded to our requests for comment.
The jury-less bench trial is expected to run through Friday.
