Activist says Kansas law stifled voter registration efforts
Source: Associated Press
Margaret Stafford, Associated Press
Updated 4:26 pm, Wednesday, March 7, 2018
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Voter registration efforts in Kansas were devastated after the state enacted a law requiring documented proof of U.S. citizenship at the polls, the former president of the League of Women Voters of Kansas testified Wednesday in the second day of a federal trial.
Margaret Ahrens, 76, of Topeka, said the League stopped taking voter registrations immediately after the law took effect in 2013 because it didn't want to be liable for handling voters' personal information. Registrations resumed before the 2014 elections once the League received guidance on how to help voters, but Ahrens said workers have encountered thousands of people who couldn't meet the law's requirements, particularly the young, the poor and the elderly.
"We saw (the law) as a complex net of hoops and jumps for the average Kansas citizen or person we assist that was going to create barriers to their voting," Ahrens said. "We've never seen such barriers as far as I know."
The law has pitted critics who contend it is intended to make voting more difficult for certain segments of U.S. citizens against Kobach and other supporters who say it will stop what they call a major problem of noncitizens voting illegally in U.S. elections.
Read more: https://www.chron.com/news/us/article/Trial-in-lawsuit-over-Kansas-voting-law-enters-12736046.php
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