A Kansas law that requires voters to prove their citizenship is on trial in federal court this week.
From 2013 to 2016, more than 35,000 registrants were blocked from the voting rolls by the state’s documentary proof-of-citizenship law.
The American Civil Liberties Union sued Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, alleging the law “undermines the fundamental right to vote” and violates the National Voter Registration Act. The NRVA says people must have an opportunity to register to vote when they apply for or renew their driver’s licenses. In the process, the law has opened the door to fraud.
Kansas’ Secure and Fair Elections (SAFE) Act went an extra step: requiring applicants to prove their legal status by presenting confirming paperwork, such as a birth certificate or passport.
It’s an entirely reasonable response. Identification requirements are routine for everything from opening a bank account to picking up theater tickets.
The don’t-ask/don’t tell “honor system” created by the NVRA has corrupted voting rolls in several states. Most recently, FAIR reported that 100,000 non-citizens were registered to vote in Pennsylvania. Similar reports have surfaced across the country.
Talk about foreign interference in U.S. elections.
Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson likened the honor system for voter registration to an unlocked jewelry case. “Would a jewelry store assume no one would ever consider stealing a necklace?” he asked. “Elections are way more important than necklaces.”
As Kobach puts it: “Just having someone sign something saying they are a United States citizen is nothing.”
FAIR: Noncitizen voting is easy
Rather than putting Kansas on trial, public-spirited officials should be scouring voter records in other states, and purging noncitizens from the rolls. In Texas – home to an estimated 3 million illegal aliens — the nonpartisan Public Interest Legal Foundation is challenging county registrars to produce cancellations of alien voters. PILF is getting stonewalled.
While the ACLU worries over privacy rights and voting rights, how about the right to fair elections? Amid the misplaced concern for “immigrant rights,” it’s important to note that illegal aliens and foreign nationals have no right to vote in federal elections.
“Americans, not foreigners, should be electing American officials,” says PILF president J. Christian Adams.
Mounting evidence is casting reasonable doubt on the integrity of U.S. voter rolls, and our elections. With the ACLU determined to lead us down the Yellow Brick Road to the type of unfettered voter fraud that would make even the Wicked Witch blush, the problem is not in Kansas.