As primary Election Day rolls around Tuesday, Aug. 5, some would-be voters have been left in registration limbo.
That situation was pointed out by Scott Morgan, a Republican primary challenger to Secretary of State Kris Kobach, at a candidate forum July 30 at Kansas City Kansas Community College.
Morgan said about 19,000 Kansans, which may have grown to 24,000 last week, were on a suspension list for voter registration. Some of them have not provided all the documents proving their citizenship that are now necessary to register.
They have until Monday (today) to turn in their citizenship documents to the local election office, and they also may text the documents to the election office, according to Samantha Poetter of the secretary of state’s office.
Kobach, who lives in the Piper area of Kansas City, Kan., was not present at the candidate forum at KCKCC. He was represented by Poetter.
Poetter said she was a child of immigrants and that protecting the vote in Kansas by requiring voter identification and citizenship requirements was important. She also said business services have been improved in the secretary of state’s office, and that Kobach is working together with other departments to make the office a one-stop shop for businesses.
She said Kobach has reduced the size of the agency by 14 percent; returned $20 million to the state general fund; and cut expenditures by 11 percent in the secretary of state’s office.
Morgan, of Lawrence, grew up in Shawnee, Kan., has worked for Sen. Nancy Kassebaum and Sen. Bob Dole, and represented the U.S. Senate on the Federal Election Commission; was chief counsel for Sen. Dole’s presidential campaign; and was chief counsel for Gov. Mike Hayden. He was a candidate for Congress in 1990. He also started a small publishing business, and has served two terms on the Lawrence school board.
He said secretary of state is largely a clerical position, but it is elected because the secretary of state is the chief election official.
“I believe that right to vote is so fundamental and so dear to all of us that I get very nervous when the government starts telling me that we need to limit it to protect it,” Morgan said.
He said he did not support the new requirements requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote.
“I think those go against the grain of what it means to be Kansans,” Morgan said. “For 150 years we have had good, clean elections.”
Voter fraud has not produced the kind of problems that require additional restrictions on registration, he believes.
“We can’t get Kansans to vote in Kansas elections, I’m not sure why illegal immigrants would want to do that,” he said. “So I want to make sure that we protect that right to vote.”
Morgan also said the secretary of state’s job is full-time and mentioned Kobach’s working on other projects all around the country that had nothing to do with being secretary of state. Poetter said Kobach works more than 40 hours a week in the secretary of state’s office and has only been out of state twice since she started working in the office.
Kobach, who grew up in Topeka, Kan., was a professor of constitutional law before becoming secretary of state. He is the co-author of the Arizona illegal immigration law and also has worked on other states’ immigration laws. He worked in the personal office of U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2001 during the Bush administration.
Poetter said if people want to vote, they will vote, and the office is trying to make it easier. Those who were born in Kansas don’t have to prove their citizenship, she said. Providing proof of citizenship and voter identification are important, she said.
She said the 19,000 people on the suspension list are in the process of being registered. Their registration is not thrown out, they are still in the process, and all they need to do is provide their citizenship document, she said.
People who are 17 years old, or a felon, or who don’t check the boxes correctly on the registration form also may be on the suspension list, not just those who are having to prove their citizenship, she added.
Morgan said during a 15-year period, from 1997 to 2012, out of 10 million people who voted, about 235 people may have had some allegations of fraud. Now, because of worries about voter fraud, there are 19,000 Kansans who just can’t vote, according to Morgan.
“I think that is a fatal flaw in the system,” Morgan said. “That, to me, is a far bigger problem,” he said.
Morgan said everyone in Kansas needs to have a sense of trust that everyone is going to treat them fairly, regardless of their party.
“It is hard for a lot of people to register,” he said. Because of the “clunky” online registration system, many try to register online and it doesn’t work, he said.
“This right is so basic of a foundation to everything else that we hold dear that we start playing with it at our own expense,” Morgan said. “The fear we have is not of those who threaten us by illegal aliens voting, it is by Americans and Kansans who don’t vote because they find it too difficult and too confusing.”
To see more of the candidates’ views, visit
