TOPEKA – Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach today filed an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to hear Republican National Committee v. Mi FamiliaVota and confirm that states can make rules governing their own elections, including requiring voters to show proof of citizenship.
The move is in pursuit of efforts to restrict voting only to U.S. citizens as required by law, particuarly in view of an estimated 8 million illegals who’ve entered the United States under lax border enforcement by the Biden Administration since 2021, and newly-minted Democrat presidential candidate Kamala Harris’ professed desire to provide a “path to citizenship” for those illegal immigrants.
“When I was Secretary of State,” Kobach said, “Kansas led the charge to stop noncitizens from voting illegally in our elections. Now, even the United States Congress has recognized the urgency of this problem. It is clear under the U.S. Constitution that states have the authority to require proof of citizenship to ensure that noncitizens do not vote. I am hopeful that the Supreme Court will resolve this question once and for all.”
The brief argues that the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) does not prohibit states from ensuring that only citizens register to vote and that it doesn’t preempt a state’s right to regulate its presidential elections or to restrict how states conduct elections.
Many states, including Kansas and Arizona, require that voters be United States citizens. However, the courts have chipped away at states’ authority to secure their own elections.
“Voting by noncitizens, both legal and illegal, is real. The typical rejoinder is to claim that few noncitizens vote. On its own terms, though, the answer at least acknowledges that the problem persists. But it also ignores that even small voting blocs can have outsized effects on electoral outcomes. That effect is most obvious in local elections,” the brief reads.
Kobach is joined on the amicus brief by attorneys general in 23 other states, including West Virginia, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Iowa, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, and Virginia.
Read the full amicus brief here.
Dane Hicks is a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism and the United States Marine Corps Officer Candidate School at Quantico, VA. He is the author of novels "The Skinning Tree" and "A Whisper For Help." As publisher of the Anderson County Review in Garnett, KS., he is a recipient of the Kansas Press Association's Boyd Community Service Award as well as more than 60 awards for excellence in news, editorial and photography.
