Kris Kobach’s improvisational democracy takes center stage in Kansas

At last look, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach was decrying a state Supreme Court ruling requiring his office to honor the request of Democrat Chad Taylor to withdraw from the race for U.S. Senate and have his name removed from the November ballot.

Very well, said Kobach, Taylor won’t be on the ballot, but state law (according to Kobach) says some Democrat has to be, and so his office was going to delay printing and mailing ballots to overseas members of the military for eight days to give the Democratic Party time to fill in the ballot line. Never mind that federal law requires service members abroad be mailed their ballots 45 days in advance of the election, Kobach said he had been granted an eight-day waiver.

Except he hadn’t.

The AP reported on that waiver last week, but by late Friday, calls the Department of Justice, which oversees such matters of voting rights, revealed that nothing of the sort existed. There was no waiver granted to Kansas. Kobach had, to use a term of art, lied, and he was still bound to honor the federal law or face legal action.

And so, on Friday night, Kobach backtracked on, or more like sidestepped the issue — Kansas would mail the ballots, and those ballots would not include the name Chad Taylor or the name of any other Democrat in the contest against GOP incumbent Sen. Pat Roberts and independent challenger Greg Orman.

But, there’s a but.

Kansas would send ballots overseas, but those ballots would come with a caveat: A two-page disclaimer, explaining in loopy, looping faux-legalese that the ballot sent Saturday was only the first draft, and that recipients might have to vote on a revised ballot later.

“You may vote using the ballot accompanying this letter as soon as you receive it, or you may wait to vote until you’ve received further notification from us,” the Kobach memo said. “If a replacement ballot is sent to you, and you have already returned the ballot that accompanies this letter, only your replacement ballot will be counted.”

Huh, wha? Does the first ballot never count? Is it valid if a second ballot isn’t sent back by the voter? How long will service members have to cast that second ballot? And what if there is no second ballot?

Well, to that last point, at least, Kobach has an answer: Troops overseas will receive another memo.

All of this in an attempt to get another ballot printed with some Democrat’s name on it. Why? As noted, it is Kobach’s deep bow to the campaign of Sen. Roberts (a campaign on which he is an honorary official), and to his conservative base, which views Kobach as a bit of hero — no longer so much in Kansas, where Kobach’s partisan flailing seems to be hurting him in his own race for re-election, but nationally.

Kobach is widely recognized as an anti-immigration crusader, and one of Kobach’s most desperate concerns is the possibility that immigrants get in to the polling booth. In his 2010 campaign for Secretary of State, he vowed to fight voter fraud, a problem so devilish, Kobach was able to cite all of one case where an illegal immigrant tried to vote.

But never-you-mind — once in office, Kobach rewrote Kansas rules, requiring all new registrants to show proof of U.S. citizenship, and all voters in Kansas elections to show photo I.D. The former rule resulting in the disqualification of almost 20,000 new registrants, and resulting in a two-tier voting structure where some were barred from voting in Kansas races, but had to be allowed a say in federal elections, where rules only require a voter swear to citizenship.

That setup also faces a court challenge, so there is another confusing limbo for Kansans who want to exercise their constitutional rights.

“Just when we thought that Kris Kobach couldn’t do anything worse to disrespect the voting process,” said a statement issued by Kobach’s November opponent, Jean Schodorf, “he now is creating a situation that will complicate our elections for those who put their lives on the line for us every day. Our military.”

Indeed, Kobach’s game playing is bad for overseas troops and civilian aids, and it is of dubious sincerity for a man so committed to the sanctity of the ballot, but this bit of electoral shenanigans will affect fewer than 600 votes.

Which, again, has to make observers wonder, whom is Kobach doing this for? There is almost zero chance the November ballot will change for the general Kansas voter. Courts do not seem inclined to order Democrats to nominate someone when the party does not want to. Is the Roberts campaign so desperate it is calling in the chits for a few hundred votes? (Note: they are desperate — desperate enough to fly in 91-year-old former Kansas Sen. Bob Dole — but in a statewide race, this small group of ballots will likely not be the deciding factor.) Or does Kobach have bigger plans — for himself if not for Kansas?