ACLU Sues Kansas Over Two Tiered Voting System

Today the American Civil Liberties Union?and ACLU of Kansas filed a lawsuit challenging the Kansas two tiered voter registration system that is leaving people unable to vote in local and state elections.

In its 2013 decision in?Arizona v. The Inter Tribal Council of Arizona, the?Supreme Court?ruled 7-2 that Arizona’s proof of citizenship law for voter registration violated the 1993?National Voter Registration Act?(NVRA) mainly because voters declare under penalty of perjury that they are citizens when they register using the federal form.

To try and get around the court’s ruling Kansas has implemented a dual registration system. This system prevents people who use the federal form from voting in state and local elections unless they show additional documentary proof of citizenship.

Voter registration for thousands of Kansans is already being held in “suspense” because of the new documentation requirements. Under this new two-tiered system, people who have followed the normal process to register are denied the right to vote in state and local elections because of the form they used. In fact,?17,000 Kansas voters have been?blocked from registering?this year, ?a third of all registration applicants, because the DMV doesn’t transfer citizenship documents to election officials.

The ACLU charges that the state has

?unilaterally established an unprecedented and unlawful voter registration system that divides registered voters in Kansas into two separate and unequal classes, with vastly different rights and privileges?based on nothing more than the method of registration that a voter uses.

The complaint also asserts that the dual system denies Kansans election-related rights such as signing petitions.

The whole purpose of the “motor voter” bill was that people would have greater access to the franchise. This is clearly a blatant attempt to restrict that access without rational reason.

Edited and published by CB

Laurie Bertram Roberts is the president of Mississippi National Organization for Women, a feminist activist, full spectrum doula and writer in Jackson, MS. Her family suspected she was trouble when at age 8 she preferred reading weekly news magazines over girly magazines. Her early fascination with liberal ideals, women's rights, was not quite welcome in her conservative fundamentalist Christian home. She is incredibly passionate about reproductive justice and fighting all forms of oppression. When not speaking truth to power she is likely hanging out with her children watching sci fi or doing other nerd like things.