Some of the background for this comes from John Judis' article, "America's Worst Republican Could Soon Lose His Office: Why everyone must tune in to Kris Kobach's race in Kansas" in The New Republic:
What had been a three-way race for senator in Kansas, with nobody polling a majority, has now become the hottest senate race in the country -- because a tactical decision was made by the Democratic candidate to drop out, giving the Independent candidate a better chance of defeating incumbent conservative Pat Roberts.
One reason it has captured national attention is that Kansas -- yes, Kansas -- could beome the state that lets Democrats retain control of the senate, assuming that the Independent Greg Orman would caucus with them.
The other reason it has captured attention is the antics of Kris Kobach, the Kansas Secretary of State who has turned this into high drama. Koback has been a crusader against illegal immigrants and (non-existent) voter fraud and has been associated with ultra-conservative causes, like trying to keep Barack Obama off the ballot because he "hadn't proved his citizenship." He managed to disqualify 20,000 people who tried to register but couldn't produce proof of citizenship, like one 92 year old woman who does not have a birth certificate and can't get one.
Koback said the Democratic candidate's letter of withdrawal had not included all the information necessary, like explaining why he couldn't serve; and therefore his name would have to remain on the ballot (the deadline for withdrawing having already passed).
When the Kansas Supreme Court over-ruled him on Thursday and ordered him to remove the name, he then said that the Democratic party would have to name another candidate. The deadline for sending out absentee ballots to our troops overseas was Friday. But Kobach told the media that the Department of Justice had given him a week's extension on sending out the ballots.
The Democratic party said Koback had no authority to order them to name another candidate, and they had no intention of doing so And the DoJ said they had not even talked with Koback about an extension.
So then Friday he did send out the ballots with just the two names but included a confusing letter, telling the service men and women that they could use this ballot to vote, but that they might get another one later with three names; and, if so, they could use that one if they wanted to and had not already sent in the first one.
But this raised questions about the legality of some voters having 2 options and some 3. So that's obviously not going to be approved by the courts. And that's where it stands here on the weekend.
Kobach is not looking too good right now, especially given that he is running for re-election on the issue of stamping out voter fraud. Is all this (and much more) enough to lose the race for him? His opponent is a former Republican who switched parties just to run against him.
Stay tuned.
Ralph
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment