Kansas has registration by party, but the Kansas voter registration form does not have a blank line in which a voter can write in a party. The form mentions the qualified parties, so a voter in Kansas is forced to either register as an independent, or as a member of a qualified party. On August 8, the Constitution Party, which is not ballot-qualified in Kansas, filed this brief in the 10th circuit, in its lawsuit to force the state to let voters register into unqualified parties that are active in the state. The case is Constitution Party of Kansas v Kobach, 11-3152.
The 10th circuit already ruled in 1984 in Baer v Meyer, a Colorado case, that the Constitution requires states to let voters register into active unqualified parties. Kansas is in the 10th circuit. But the U.S. District Court still ruled in this case in favor of the state, saying that if there were a write-in space, perhaps the voter would have illegible handwriting and elections officials might not be able to read the party name. This ignores the obvious points that, first, the form asks voters to print; second, if this were a problem for the party name, theoretically it would be an even bigger problem for reading the voter’s name and address.
Massive fail by the folks in the tenth circuit. Hmmm where did I hear a similar argument like that before…oh yeah!!! Murkowski in ’10, where our old pal Joe Miller tried to toss out the votes for her even though it was incredibly clear that the voter picked Murkowski. I am not a fan of the big-government pork-loving senator in Alaska’s office right now, but boy I do have a problem when one tries to steal an election where the people have clearly spoken.
Go CP. Shred Kansas in court! I’m rooting for you guys especially cause I live in Kansas!
NO computers in KS to TYPE in numbers and letters — by a voter or even an election law bureaucrat ???
How many illegible signatures ??? — to increase or decrease fraud ???
P.R. and nonpartisan A.V. — before it is too late.