TOPEKA – The tale of Dorothy Cooper reads like a horror story to opponents of Kansas’ tougher new voter-registration requirements.
As reported last October in Tennessee and on the Internet, Cooper, a 96-year-old retired domestic worker who has voted in nearly every election during the past seven decades, was denied a Tennessee voter identification card because she didn’t have the proper paperwork.
Cooper had a birth certificate, understandably in her maiden name. But she didn’t have a marriage certificate establishing her current identity. The Tennessee Department of Safety and Homeland Security turned down her application for a free photo ID that Tennessee, like Kansas, offers voters in lieu of drivers licenses.
“Except that story is not exactly accurate,” said Jennifer Donnals, communications director for Tennessee Homeland Security.
“There was some confusion and we could have done more on the spot to clear it up, like calling the county clerk where she was married and verified the marriage certificate,” Donnals said. “But Ms. Cooper now has her ID and can vote in the next presidential election if she chooses.”
This election cycle, voters here will be required to bring photo identification to the polls, and a proposal by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach that — beginning next June — requires new voters to provide proof of their U.S. citizenship when they register. The Secretary of State is Kansas’ highest ranking elections officer.
Tighter voter ID requirements "are definitely a good idea," said Dave Cheek, an Overland Park resident who's been following the debate in the news.
"If people who aren't citizens vote, that's bad," Cheek said. "And without voter ID, nothing prevents them from going over into the next county and voting more than once."
Critics of the requirements worry that snafus similar to what happened in Tennessee will occur here.
Kansas legislators voted for both in 2011, but the law — known as House Bill 2067 — postponed the effective date of the proof of citizenship requirement until Jan. 1, 2013.
Kobach, a Republican who campaigned for his office in 2010 on a platform of fighting voter fraud, is a former University of Missouri-Kansas City law professor known nationally for his work in helping Arizona, Alabama and other state local governments craft legislation designed to help curb illegal immigration.
The secretary’s recommendation to speed up the proof of citizenship requirement by about six months, which will be offered to state legislators soon, has nothing to do with immigration policy, said Kay Curtis, communications director for the Secretary of State’s Office.
“It’s about preventing voter fraud,” Curtis said.
Kansas legislators passed the additional safeguards in 2011, and election officials know the changes are coming, so it just makes sense to make them now, she said.
The new ID requirements, in the view of one resident, are no more burdensome than those needed to write checks in retail stores.
"You ought to have to show who you are, " said Bob Harsh, a Prairie Village business owner. "It's reasonable to want to have an idea of who you are dealing with."
"We're all for it," Newby said.
The change would be easier and less confusing than spreading the rules over two years, he said, because both the ID and proof of citizenship requirements would become effective before the 2012 presidential election.
"Voters know the changes are coming, but there will be some confusion about what's happening now and what's happening next year," he said. "It would be far easier to get it all over at once."
State Rep. Ann Mah, D-Topeka, the highest ranking Democrat on the Kansas House Election Committee and one of the most vocal critics of the proof of citizenship requirement, said moving the requirement six months earlier is unnecessary.
"Despite 41 suspected incidents of voter fraud that the secretary provided when we asked, we can't find records of any prosecution or a single instance of an illegal (alien) trying to vote," Mah said.
New Kansas voters should have little trouble coming up with documents that meet the proof requirements, said Curtis, the secretary of state’s communications chief. U.S. passports will suffice, she said. Some 435,000 passports have been issued to Kansas applicants since 2007, according to the U.S. State Department.
Drivers licenses from states that certify the U.S. citizenship of motorists also will work. Kansas is not yet one of the states, but officials are working to integrate the needed technology, as required by a state law passed in 2007, said
Jeannine Koranda, the
Kansas Department of Revenue’s press secretary.
“We’re confident we could meet the June deadline,” that Kobach proposed, Koranda said.
In addition, about a dozen different forms of ID, including birth certificates, adoption papers, military and government IDs, would be accepted as sufficient proof. All are listed on a Kansas government website, said state Rep. John Rubin, R-Overland Park, who in 2011 led the floor debate that secured the requirement’s passage.
“The law goes out of its way to make sure the process for qualifying to vote is extremely broad,” he said.
But what about voters such as Cooper in Tennessee, who become caught in paperwork tangles?
“Passports, birth certificates and many other similar documents should work in most cases,” said Gail Goeke, an immigration attorney with the McCrummen Immigration Law Group LLC in Kansas City.
“But the added difficulty of providing those documents would fall harder on older people or people with limited incomes,” Goeke said.
If you’re a single parent holding down a job, it can be hard to take time off” to navigate the system and find copies of needed documents, she said.
Most states simply ask registering voters if they are U.S. citizens, “and a few make you swear to it in signed documents,” said Sheela Murthy, founder of Murthy Law, a Maryland firm that specializes in immigration work.
“As a lawyer who believes in the process of law, I don’t think it’s terrible to ask someone for proof of something they’ve just signed,” Murthy said.
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