Category: Election 2018

by Celia Llopis-Jepsen, Kansas News Service

Kris Kobach lost his 2004 bid for Congress to Democrat Dennis Moore by a hefty margin — nearly 12 percentage points in a district that went Republican a few years later.

Ask Moore’s media consultant what turned that race, and he’ll point to allegations that Kobach took money from people with thinly veiled white supremacist agendas.

“It stopped his progress dead in the water,” recalled Martin Hamburger, who created a 2004 ad that hammered Kobach on that front.

In the TV ad, scored with ominous music, a deep voice intones: “Why are Kansans turning from Kris Kobach?”

“Look who’s supporting him. People in groups tied to white supremacists gave Kobach thousands. One even hired Kobach.”

Kobach and Moore tore at each other over that ad on a debate stage that fall. Kobach accused the incumbent of stooping to “politics of personal destruction.”

“This isn’t about personality,” Moore retorted. “It’s about judgment. It’s about people we choose to take money from and associate with.”

You can watch their debate — which included replaying that TV ad for the debate audience — on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ai5puBPbcs8. Skip to about 35 minutes in.

As Kobach heads into the general election for governor, he’s facing the same allegations.

This month, The Topeka Capital-Journal reported concerns from GOP consultants that his campaign is employing three white nationalists.

Meanwhile, a small but vocal PAC called Kobach is Wrong for Kansas stops short of calling him racist, but argues he associates with, and benefits from, groups with white supremacist sympathies.

“He’s unrelenting in his willingness to accept support from people who share harmful ideas,” says Zachary Mueller, the group’s researcher.

In a recent interview with the Kansas News Service, Kobach dismissed the PAC’s criticisms.

He accuses his opponents of engaging in a “Kevin Bacon game” to link him by several degrees of separation to racist ideologies.

“It’s just a stupid argument,” he said, and on a personal level, it’s “hurtful.”

“I believe we are all God’s children,” he said. “We are all created equal.”

So what are the allegations against Kobach? They run the gamut, but here are two that have been independently reported by local and national news outlets over the years.

According to The New York Times, The Kansas City Star and ProPublica, for years, Kobach did legal work sponsored by John Tanton’s organization, the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

His work focused on anti-illegal immigration initiatives, such as trying to get Kansas colleges to charge students out-of-state tuition if the students aren’t in the U.S. legally.

Tanton — according to the Times — wanted to convince white people they needed to stop the U.S. from changing demographically, and republished a racist French novel about hordes of refugees and “the end of the white world.”

Kobach earned more than $125,000 from Tanton’s group and received thousands more in campaign contributions from a PAC run by Tanton’s wife.

Kobach’s critics also point to other co-appearances, collaborations or hat-tips that they say link Kobach to racists and Holocaust deniers. Among these is a column Kobach wrote for the radically conservative Breitbart website arguing illegal immigrants commit more crime than U.S. citizens — despite, according to experts, a lack of evidence.

Kobach leaned in part on writing by Peter Gemma, whom the Anti-Defamation League calls a racist. In 2005, the Washington Post reported Gemma was working with a white supremacist group opposed to white people mixing with other races, and that he held a speaking event for high-profile Holocaust denier David Irving.

Celia Llopis-Jepsen is a reporter for the Kansas News Service, a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and High Plains Public Radio covering health, education and politics. You can reach her on Twitter @Celia_LJ.
Kansas News Service stories and photos may be republished at no cost with proper attribution and a link back to the original post.
See more at http://www.kcur.org/post/connections-racists-dogged-kobach-2004-tail-his-2018-run-kansas-governor

by Andrea Tudhope, Kansas News Service

A voting equipment vendor says a coding error is behind the delay in this year’s primary election results in Johnson County, which left some statewide races undecided until the following morning earlier this month.

Nebraska-based Election Systems and Software (ES&S) issued an apology Monday, taking responsibility for the delay. Gary Weber, vice president of software development for ES&S, said it came down to a “non-performing” piece of software, which caused slow processing of the 192 encrypted master thumb drives that held the votes.

“There were several different things that all kind of came together on election night that really exposed this section of code, and exacerbated the problem,” Weber said.

Part of the issue was a failure to test the system with the actual number of ballot positions that a Johnson County voter would see on August’s ballot. ES&S conducted many tests ahead of time, but Weber told KCUR that if they had increased the capacity in the tests, they would have likely run into and identified the coding issue ahead of the election.

Moving forward, he said, the company has expanded the numbers of contests and candidates for testing of the systems.

Weber emphasized that the flawed software in question is separate from the vote tallying software and the voting machines.

The delay in August called into question the seeming last-minute purchase of ES&S equipment this year, two years after the Johnson County Election Commission approved $13 million to replace 15-year-old voting machines. The commission didn’t select ES&S until earlier this year, and the selection wasn’t certified until July.

“We were coming under the wire on getting the version of the software certified and ready to go for this election, but the voting machine itself, and waiting ’til late in the game like it may appear that we did, had no bearing on that,” Johnson County election commissioner Ronnie Metsker told KCUR.

After conducting an investigation, ES&S has rewritten the software code, which the company said it will submit for federal certification later this week. Kathy Rogers, senior vice president of government relations, said it usually takes about a month for approval.

At that rate, Johnson County may not see the updates installed until early to mid-October. But Rogers told KCUR it will be enough time ahead of the general election Nov. 7.

“Plenty of time,” she said. “We’ll be doing testing here, Johnson County will be testing concurrently, we’ll continue testing, and also, testing will be ongoing at the lab.”

The Johnson County Election Office also plans to install an additional thousand voting machines and hire 1,000 more workers to ease issues voters reportedly experienced at the polls in August.

Andrea Tudhope is a reporter for KCUR 89.3. Email her at [email protected], and follow her on Twitter @_tudhope. Kansas News Service stories and photos may be republished at no cost with proper attribution and a link back to the original post.
See more at http://www.kcur.org/post/voting-equipment-vendor-apologizes-after-coding-snafu-delayed-kansas-primary-results.

by Stephen Koranda, Kansas News Service

Gov. Jeff Colyer lost a nail-biter Republican primary for governor to Secretary of Kris Kobach and quickly backed the man who beat him.

At least one key member of his campaign, however, moved on Monday to jump ship from the party’s nominee.

Colyer campaign chairman and longtime former Kansas Farm Bureau president Steve Baccus threw his support to independent candidate Greg Orman.

Baccus’ move marks a public defection from Colyer’s efforts to rally party regulars behind Kobach, and it’s a strategy to bring Colyer supporters to the Orman campaign.

“I made it clear when I joined Gov. Colyer’s campaign,” Baccus said in a statement, “that I believed Kansas needed a leader who was committed to the state.”

Baccus cited Orman’s business experience and the agricultural roots of his running mate, state Sen. John Doll.

Kobach is outspoken and sometimes controversial, billing himself as a “full-throttled conservative.”

Orman said he’s hoping to build a wide coalition, and he’s working to attract Republicans who are put off by what he calls Kobach’s “extreme” policies.

“I hope that all Kansans who are concerned about those policies take a hard look at my campaign,” Orman said in a phone interview. “I think when they do, they’ll realize that we are the best choice to move the state of Kansas forward.”

Baccus and Orman were campaigning Monday after the announcement. Baccus said his decision was driven by policies, not Kobach’s style.

“I’ve been involved with politics long enough that I prefer not to get personal about it,” Baccus said in a phone interview. “If you’re worried about where this state is, worried about rural Kansas, take a look at Greg Orman.”

The Kansas Farm Bureau endorsed Colyer in the primary but has not yet backed anyone in the general election.

Colyer came out in support of Kobach after the primary and he doubled down on that Monday.

“While Steve can certainly campaign for whoever he likes,” Colyer said in a statement, “I have made my support for Republican candidate Kris Kobach very clear and encourage all Republicans to rally around our nominee.”

Kobach characterized the endorsement as political insiders sticking together.

“Our campaign to fight special interests, bring good-paying jobs to hard-working Kansans, and fix Topeka is not going to be popular with the special-interest crowd,” he said. “I’m OK with that.”

Democratic state Sen. Laura Kelly rounds out the high-profile candidates in the race for Kansas governor.

Stephen Koranda is Statehouse reporter for Kansas Public Radio, a partner in the Kansas News Service. Follow him on Twitter @kprkoranda.
Kansas News Service stories and photos may be republished at no cost with proper attribution and a link back to the original post.
See more at http://www.kcur.org/post/former-colyer-campaign-official-backs-orman-over-kobach-kansas-governor-race.