"the cake is already baked" say outside experts; ACLU--Kobach wants to dismantle the National Voter
All he needs is for congressional Repugs to stick together and pass this legislation. damn
ACLU National?Verified account @ACLU
Kris Kobach wants to dismantle the National Voter Registration Act, making it harder for Americans to vote.
Vice chair of Trumps voter fraud commission wants to change federal law to add new requirements for voting, email shows
By Christopher Ingraham July 17
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The day after Donald Trump was elected president, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, now the vice-chair of Trump's commission on voter fraud, told Trump's transition team of a proposal to change federal law to allow stricter requirements on voter registration.
Kobach's team was "putting together information on legislation drafts for submission to Congress early in the administration," Kobach wrote to transition team member Gene Hamilton in an email. "I have some already started regarding amendments to the NVRA [National Voter Registration Act] to make clear that proof of citizenship requirements are permitted (based on my ongoing litigation with the ACLU over this)."
Amending the NVRA in such a manner "will lead to a dramatic reduction in access to voting," said Wendy Weiser, director of the democracy program at NYU's Brennan Center, in an interview. "Every time legal obstacles to restricting the vote have been lifted in recent years, we've seen substantial spikes in efforts to restrict the vote."
Passed in 1993, the NVRA contains a number of provisions intended to increase voter participation. Among other provisions, it requires states to allow voter registration at motor vehicle offices and by mail.
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The ACLU filed a motion for Kobach to release those documents. Kobach attempted to argue that the documents were not related to the proof of citizenship requirement, but he was subsequently fined $1,000 by the federal court for making false claims about their contents.
In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a similar proof of citizenship requirement by 7-2, ruling that under the Constitution, the federal National Voter Registration Act must take precedence over any state citizenship requirement. Amending the NVRA to explicitly allow state-level citizenship requirements would eliminate that conflict between state and federal law...........................