WILL THE “VOTER ID KING” BECOME THE GOVERNOR OF KANSAS?

…This man seriously thinks millions of immigrants vote illegally every year

Kobach finally recused himself from overseeing the Kansas Governor’s vote

So, the president said for his administration, he would only choose the “best people”.

If Kris Collins, Paul Manafort, Mike Flynn, Kris Kobach, George Papadopoulos, Scott Pruitt, Carter Page, Michael Cohen, Tom Price, Wilbur Ross, Rick Gates. Anthony Scaramucci, Steve Bannon, Omarosa, Rob Porter and Gary Cohn are examples of “the best people”, it’s definitely time for us to get a new commander-in-chief.

If we just take the Kansas Secretary of State, Kris Kobach, as an example, he is an anti-illegal immigration hard-liner and a staunch ally of President Trump, and he is not an example of “the best”.

As a little background on Mr. Kobach, he was designated by the president to head up the President’s Voter Fraud Panel.  This group was supposed to have representatives from all of the states and major corporations.  The goal of the panel was to confirm that millions of illegal immigrants voted in 2016 to keep Trump from winning the popular vote.  The panel was eventually disbanded because none of the states wanted to support Kobach’s idea of a central data base with all the voter’s critical data in one place.  What a great place for our nation’s enemies (Russia?) to hack into and obtain all of the nation’s voter data.  Voter data today is located in each of our 50 states, not all in one place.

Kobach was also the anti-immigrant individual that worked closely with ALEC the American Legislative Exchange Council on developing strict Voter ID and Stand Your Ground laws for many US states.  However, for the president’s voter fraud panel, before it was disbanded, documents show that it failed to turn up any evidence of widespread voter fraud in 2016.

But in a statement sent to The Washington Post, Kobach accused his naysayers of being: “willfully blind to the voter fraud in front of their nose,” as he pointed to studies from two conservative groups about the supposed voter fraud.  One was a bogus database from the Heritage Foundation that found 983 convictions in state, local and federal elections supposedly dating back decades.  In addition, there was the study from the Government Accountability Institute, a nonprofit founded by Stephen K. Bannon, (a highly questionable source), that purported to find 8,400 instances of double voting in the 2016 election.  Neither of these studies offered the back-up data to support their findings.

In addition, election experts interviewed by The Post said that the two studies made for flawed examples of the issue of voter fraud. Examining them showed the ways in which statistics can be massaged and studies can be selectively deployed to push the supposed masses of voter fraud, and of course, the need for stricter voter identification laws. 

Though a handful of people vote illegally, either intentionally or unintentionally every year, election experts say that there is no evidence that voter fraud is a widespread issue of any statistical significance.

As for Kris Kobach today, in the latest Republican Primary in Kansas, newly discovered discrepancies have continued to reduce Kris Kobach lead over the incumbent Gov. Jeff Colyer for Kansas governor.

Kobach, who campaigned as that staunch ally of President Trump, he originally had a 191-vote advantage over Colyer as of Wednesday morning.  But due to an error in transmitting the vote from Thomas County in northern Kansas, that lead was reduced.

To complicate matters, the Haskell County Clerk’s Office said late Thursday afternoon that Kobach’s Secretary of State’s website did not accurately reflect their county’s numbers either. The Haskell County results should show 257 votes for Kobach and 220 votes for Colyer, instead of the state’s total of 110 for Kobach and 103 for Colyer.

The latest adjustments mean Kobach’s lead over Colyer has been reduced to 121 votes.

Colyer refused to concede the race Wednesday saying there were still thousands of provisional and mail-in ballots left to count. This newly discovered error only reinforced his resolve.

The eventual winner of the Republican primary will face the projected Democratic nominee, state Sen. Laura Kelly, and independent candidate Greg Orman in November. Kelly earned more than 50% of the vote Tuesday, in the state’s first contested Democratic primary since 1998.

The problem with this race is that as the Kansas Secretary of State, Kobach has a dual role as a partisan gubernatorial candidate and the head nonpartisan state elections official.  His office is therefore responsible for his own race’s final election count.

Kobach acknowledged his position as the state elections official. He also said if a recount were requested in the race, the votes would be tallied at the county level and his office would act simply as a coordinating entity.

Kobach is not required by Kansas law to recuse himself from the recount process. But even so, independent experts and Kobach critics had called on the Secretary of State to recuse himself from the process entirely, arguing that his role as a candidate presents a conflict of interest. Kobach did not initially say whether he planned to do so, maintaining that there are “multiple safeguards” in place to ensure the fairness of a potential recount.

Based on Kobach’s background, it definitely sounds like a potential “fox in the hen house” if he didn’t recuse himself.  Fortunately, even Kobach realized it wouldn’t look good to not recuse himself, so he has complied.  Now if there is a recount, it will be expected to be accurate, unless he has paid off someone in his operation…..?

Copyright G.Ater 2018