In court documents unsealed Thursday from a deposition taken last year, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach revealed that he had every intention of changing federal election law to encourage proof of U.S. citizenship requirements to vote at the state level.
Kobach was forced to release a document he had distributed last year during a meeting about immigration with the newly elected Donald Trump and his top aides Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus, Stephen Miller and Jared Kushner. The AP writes:
The photographed document Kobach took into his meeting with Trump was titled “Department of Homeland Security Kobach Strategic Plan for First 365 Days.” It included the header “Stop aliens from voting.”
At the deposition, Kobach said that he gave copies of the document to everyone at that meeting, and that the issue of noncitizen voting was discussed. [...]
During his deposition, Kobach acknowledged he has talked about documentary proof of citizenship for voter registration with the members and staff of the election fraud commission.
Kobach also testified that GOP Rep. Steve King of Iowa has agreed to introduce legislation amending U.S. election law to allow states to impose proof-of-citizenship requirements if Kansas loses a federal lawsuit brought by the ACLU in Kansas.
In the unsealed document, Kobach recommended changing the National Voter Registration Act so that instead of stipulating that states can require "only the minimum amount of information" needed to assess someone's voting eligibility, it would free up states to require "any information" they deem necessary. Kobach's amendment would also add that nothing in the law should be viewed as prohibiting a state from "requiring documentary proof of citizenship from any applicant."
“To me, they really confirmed what we always suspected: that there is this ready-made plan to gut the core voting rights protections of federal law and Kobach has been lobbying Trump and his top team from day one to execute that scheme,” said ACLU lawyer Orion Danjuma.
Donald Trump’s so-called “Election Integrity Commission,” which Kobach co-chairs, has been nothing but a cover for suppressing the vote of people of color from the start. But these new documents make the intent more explicit than ever. The commission is so tainted now by Kobach’s own admission that Trump should be left with no option but to disband it.