After all the talk of securing elections from any kind of fraud or impropriety with voter ID laws and voter roll purges, to say nothing of the Department of Justice forcing states to turn over their voter registration databases for screening by the Republicans in charge there, one might think the GOP was legitimately concerned with the integrity of American democracy, and the voting process that guarantees us our say in civil governance.
That’s a mouthful, and it’s wrong.
Thursday morning, in the most ironic arrest likely ever to happen in politics in Kansas state history, a candidate running for the state legislature was arrested and charged with election fraud. Why the irony? Well, the Secretary of State of Kansas, Kris Kobach, happens to be running for governor this year. He also happens to be the guy who was in charge of Donald Trump’s completely failed search for “illegal votes” in the 2016 presidential election. Kobach, as Secretary of State, is technically in charge of Kansas’ elections. And he has been a champion of voter ID laws for as long as they’ve been publicly discussed.
There is no doubt in most people’s minds that voter ID laws are intended to keep Democratically-inclined voters from being able to exercise their right to vote. A conservative Supreme Court has yet to weigh in on the constitutionality of requiring government-issued identification at the polls in order to vote — since, if the ID costs money to get, it’s an unconstitutional poll tax. But Kobach has been determined to stamp out the nonexistent menace of illegal voting.
We guess that’s why he missed the election fraud inside his own party, in his own state.
Republican Adam Thomas is being charged with election perjury after submitting falsified documents in his bid to become the state’s newest GOP legislator. He lied about his address, according to Democratic candidate Vic Miller, who filed the complaint. From the Kansas City Star:
[I’m glad]Â that the Johnson County district attorney has more political courage than apparently our secretary of state who claims to be so much against election fraud.”
The state GOP chair said they were “obviously disappointed,” but that he trusts the legal system to investigate. The candidate said he plans to fight the charge and still run on the November ballot.
Featured image via screen capture
