{"id":63482,"date":"2018-04-19T05:10:57","date_gmt":"2018-04-19T05:10:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=63482"},"modified":"2018-04-19T05:10:57","modified_gmt":"2018-04-19T05:10:57","slug":"kobach-helped-lead-trumps-election-panel-a-judge-just-found-him-in-contempt-in-a-voter-id-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/news\/kobach-helped-lead-trumps-election-panel-a-judge-just-found-him-in-contempt-in-a-voter-id-case.html","title":{"rendered":"Kobach helped lead Trump’s election panel. A judge just found him in contempt in a voter ID case"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kobach helped lead Trump’s election panel. A judge just found him in contempt in a voter ID case<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

A federal judge has found Kansas\u2019s chief elections official, Kris Kobach \u2014 a Republican who helped lead the much-criticized commission set up by President Trump to investigate supposed voter fraud \u2014 in contempt of court in a sharply worded ruling that said Kobach acted \u201cdisingenuously,\u201d and ordered him to pay damages for the opposing team\u2019s attorney fees.<\/span><\/p>\n

The order stems from a 2016 lawsuit brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of Kansas voters in federal court against a state voter ID law. The 2013 law requires people to provide proof of citizenship, such as a passport or birth certificate, when they registered to vote for the first time. The ACLU argues that the law violates the federal National Voter Registration Act, which requires state DMVs to offer people the ability to register with only the \u201cminimum amount of information necessary.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson issued a preliminary injunction in 2016 blocking the law and asked that the registrations of some 18,000 people whose materials had been held be notified with a postcard confirming their registration and polling place, as other voters are in Kansas.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the ACLU recently charged that many voters had failed to receive the postcard; one man who has joined the lawsuit, Charles Stricker, who had been affected by the law, testified that even after the injunction he had been told that the legal issues about the right of people like himself to vote were \u201cup in the air.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Robinson sided with the ACLU\u2019s January motion to hold Kobach, Kansas\u2019s secretary of state, in contempt for the failures, as the court had ordered him previously to comply.<\/span><\/p>\n

In her ruling, in which she said twice that Kobach acted \u201cdisingenuously,\u201d Robinson wrote that she found \u201cclear and convincing evidence\u201d that he had disobeyed the preliminary injunction.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cKansans have come to expect these postcards to confirm their registration status, and Defendant ensured the Court on the record that they had been sent prior to the 2016 general election,\u201d Robinson wrote. \u201cThey were not, and the fact that he sent a different notice to those voters does not wholly remove the contempt.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

[I was on Trump\u2019s voter fraud commission. Its demise was inevitable.]<\/span><\/p>\n

Robinson also wrote of evidence that Kobach \u201cwillfully failed to make sure that the county election officials were clearly and effectively trained to enforce\u201d the voting rules enforced by the injunction.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe official training manual for the counties continued to instruct that all voter registration applicants were required to submit DPOC [documented proof of citizenship] and his efforts to revise these instructions informally and in a piecemeal way led to confusion and misinformation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The ruling was another blow for Kobach, a Trump ally and candidate for governor of Kansas, who led the president\u2019s \u201celection integrity\u201d panel that was dissolved earlier this year after bipartisan rebukes from states and multiple federal lawsuits. Kobach was also fined $1,000 in connection with the case because of what another federal judge termed a \u201cpattern\u201d of \u201cmisleading the Court\u201d in voter ID cases.<\/span><\/p>\n

Kobach spokesman Moriah Day said in a statement that the secretary of state declined to comment.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe Secretary of State\u2019s Office will be appealing this decision,\u201d the statement said.<\/span><\/p>\n

The preliminary injunction blocking the 2013 law will be in effect until the resolution of the trial in the case, which began in March.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to the complaint ACLU filed with the court, some 22,000 Kansas voters were suspended or purged from the registration system because of the citizenship documentation requirement, stymieing nearly 14 percent of new registrants.<\/span><\/p>\n

Two of Kobach\u2019s witnesses have said that since 2000 Kansas has identified 127 people who are believed to be noncitizens when they registered or attempted to register, the ACLU said. The ACLU said that only 11 are believed to have actually cast a ballot.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:-https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/politics\/wp\/2018\/04\/18\/kobach-helped-lead-trumps-election-panel-a-judge-just-found-him-in-contempt-in-a-voter-id-case\/?utm_term=.dc68ba80c4f8<\/span><\/p>\n

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