Judge orders election agency to help Kansas, Arizona enforce new voter citizenship rules

[The Straight Story]

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A federal judge on Wednesday ordered the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to help Kansas and Arizona enforce laws requiring new voters to provide proof of their U.S. citizenship.

U.S. District Judge Eric Melgren in Wichita, Kan., ruled the commission has no legal authority to deny requests from Kansas and Arizona to add state-specific instructions to a national voter registration form. Melgren ordered the commission to immediately revise the national form.

The states and their top election officials — secretaries of state Kris Kobach of Kansas and Ken Bennett of Arizona, both conservative Republicans — sued the agency to force the action.

Both states require new voters to provide a birth certificate, passport or other documentation to prove their U.S. citizenship to election officials. The federal registration form requires only that prospective voters sign a statement declaring they are citizens.


http://bigstory.ap.org/article/kansas-arizona-prevail-voter-citizenship-suit

[Jake Stern]

1. Hopefully the administration will appeal this. nt

[Gothmog]

2. The ruling was stayed

Here is some good news. The ruling from the federal judge on the attempt by Kansas and Arizona to impose a two tier voting system was stayed. http://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/kansas-arizona-appeal-two-tiers

A federal appeals court breathed new life this week into the long-running fight over voter registration in Kansas and Arizona.

At stake is whether or not the U.S. Election Assistance Commission will have to add state-specific instructions about Kansas and Arizona's proof-of-citizenship requirements to the federal voter registration form. A federal district judge ruled in favor of the states in March, saying that the commission had unlawfully denied the states' requests. On Thursday, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals granted a temporary stay to the lower judge's ruling, which was sought by the commission and a collection of voting rights groups.

According to the Associated Press, circuit Judges Carlos Lucero and Jerome Holmes granted the emergency stay one day after the lower judge, U.S. District Judge Eric Melgren, rejected a request to suspend his ruling pending the commission's appeal. The 10th circuit judges gave Kansas and Arizona until Tuesday to respond to the commission's request that the ruling be stayed during the appeal.

Arizona Advocacy Network, one of the voting rights groups involved in the case, hailed the ruling. Sam Wercinski, the group's executive director, put out a statement calling Thurday "a good day for Arizona voters and civic engagement groups helping citizens to register and vote."

This is great news. Hopefully, the appellant court will reverse this ruling.