Kris Kobach Wants to Decide Who Has the Right to Vote
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach has long had an appetite for nativist, anti-immigrant thinking.
It led him to work as the legal counsel to a hate group. It led him to become the architect behind harsh anti-immigrant laws. And, recently, it led him to champion an anti-voter fraud effort at a time when restrictive voting laws frequently disenfranchise minority voters.
Kobach began removing people from his state’s voter rolls in 2015, making anyone who did not provide proof of citizenship within 90 days ineligible to vote.
“It’s no big deal,” he once said, according to The New York Times Magazine. “Nobody’s being disenfranchised.”
Marvin Brown didn’t see it that way. A 91-year-old World War II veteran, Brown saw voting as a person’s “reasonable and honorable duty.” He had flown so many bombing missions that the Air Force lost count. In 1946, he paid a poll tax of $2 to ensure his right to vote.
More: Weekend Read: Kris Kobach wants to decide who has the right to vote