[EL] Kansas decision today

[Rick Hasen]

    In Loss to Kobach, Kanas Court Strikes Down Two-Tier Voter
    Registration in Kansas <http://electionlawblog.org/?p=79058>

Posted onJanuary 15, 2016 3:40 pm 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?p=79058>byRick Hasen 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?author=3>

A state court in Kansas todayissued a 30 page opinion 
<https://t.co/6AJyYiyIMX> granting summary judgment to two Kansas voters 
who registered to vote in Kansas using a federal form but who had been 
denied the right to vote in state elections by Kansas Secretary of State 
Kris Kobach.

The background: Federal law requires states to accept a “federal form” 
for voter registration (promulgated by the U.S. Election Assistance 
Commission) for voting in federal elections. Kansas Secretary of State 
Kris Kobach, a fraudulent fraud squad star member, challenged the 
authority of the federal government to require Kansas to accept that 
form, arguing that states had the final say. Because those registering 
with the federal form did not have to provide proof of citizenship (as 
normal registration in Kansas now did), Kobach argued he did not need to 
accept the federal form.  The case went all the way to the Supreme 
Court, and then through further litigation in the 10th Circuit (with 
cert. denied by the Supreme Court), establishing that Kobach was wrong: 
Congress had the authority under the U.S. Constitution’s Elections 
Clause to require states to accept the federal form for voting in 
federal elections, even if the federal form did not provide all the 
information a state wanted.

Kobach’s response to this ruling was to say that anyone who registered 
using the federal form would only be registered to vote in /federal 
/elections, and could not vote in state elections. There have been some 
legal challenges filed to this two-tiered system, and in today’s ruling, 
the Kansas court held the two tiered system violated state law (and 
federal law too it appears, although the analysis on this point is not 
clear to me.)

Kobach’s office 
<http://www.kansascity.com/news/government-politics/article54933870.html>is 
reviewing the ruling and hasn’t announced whether there will be an appeal.

Share 
<https://www.addtoany.com/share#url=http%3A%2F%2Felectionlawblog.org%2F%3Fp%3D79058&title=In%20Loss%20to%20Kobach%2C%20Kanas%20Court%20Strikes%20Down%20Two-Tier%20Voter%20Registration%20in%20Kansas&description=>
Posted inelection administration 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=18>,fraudulent fraud squad 
<http://electionlawblog.org/?cat=8>



On 1/15/16 3:37 PM, Richard Winger wrote:
> http://ballot-access.org/2016/01/15/kansas-court-says-secretary-of-state-has-no-authority-to-treat-voters-who-used-the-federal-voter-registration-form-differently/ 
>
> Richard Winger 415-922-9779 PO Box 470296, San Francisco Ca 94147
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Law-election mailing list
> Law-election at department-lists.uci.edu
> http://department-lists.uci.edu/mailman/listinfo/law-election

-- 
Rick Hasen
Chancellor's Professor of Law and Political Science
UC Irvine School of Law
401 E. Peltason Dr., Suite 1000
Irvine, CA 92697-8000
949.824.3072 - office
949.824.0495 - fax
rhasen at law.uci.edu
http://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/full-time/hasen/
http://electionlawblog.org

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20160115/da0ad317/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: share_save_171_16.png
Type: image/png
Size: 1504 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://webshare.law.ucla.edu/Listservs/law-election/attachments/20160115/da0ad317/attachment.png>