TOPEKA, Kansas — Kansas is abandoning a three-year-old law that criminalizes impersonating election officials, a state facing legal action from critics who say the law hampers voter registration.
Attorneys for the state and groups litigating the law agreed to halt enforcement, and U.S. District Judge Teresa Watson in Shawnee County, home to the state capital, Topeka, issued an injunction earlier this week to uphold their agreement. Her order will remain in effect until at least another court hearing after the November elections.
The law made “falsely representing” an election official punishable by up to 13 months in prison for a first-time offender, though two years of probation would have been the most likely punishment. The crime involves causing someone to believe that another person is an election official. The Republican-controlled Legislature passed the law in 2021 by override a veto by Democratic Governor Laura Kelly.
The groups challenging the law argue that it is so vague that voter registration volunteers could be criminally prosecuted if someone mistakenly believes they are election officials, even if those volunteers make it clear they are not, either verbally, in writing or on signs. State officials have ridiculed that argument, but groups have scaled back their activities, including one involved in the lawsuit, Loud light, which aims to register young people.
“We are excited and ready to re-register thousands of young Kansas residents to vote,” Loud Light President Davis Hammett said in a statement Wednesday, describing the law as a “voter registration suppression scheme.”
The law was one of many measures tightening of electoral laws approved by GOP lawmakers who said they were trying to bolster public confidence in elections. There is no evidence of significant fraud, but unfounded conspiracies continue to circulate because of former President Donald Trump false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.
This year, GOP lawmakers hoped to resolve the groups’ legal challenge by rewriting the law so that someone would have to intentionally impersonate an election official to be guilty of a crime. They had the support of the state’s top elections official, Secretary of State Scott Scwhab, a Republican who has championed the integrity of state elections.
Schwab spokeswoman Whitney Tempel said the goal was to “reduce voter confusion,” but lawmakers tied the change to another measure limiting federal spending on state elections. Kelly vetoed it, and Republicans could not override her.
“The recently issued temporary order underscores our concerns and underscores the need to clarify this law,” Tempel said in a statement.
In addition to Loud Light, other groups involved in the lawsuit are the League of Women Voters of Kansas, the Kansas Appleseed Center for Law and Justice and the Topeka Independent Living Resource Center, which advocates for voters with disabilities.
Watson initially declined in 2021 to block enforcement of the law, and a state Court of Appeals panel later dismissed the case. But in december, The Kansas Supreme Court has revived the law, finding it vague enough to be challenged by the groups.
In May, in a follow-up ruling that also challenged other election laws, the Supreme Court ordered Watson to block the identity theft law.
But much less attention was paid to that than to what the Supreme Court said about voting rights in general.
An article of the state constitution, which allows people 18 and older to vote, requires “proper evidence” of their eligibility. A 4-3 majority of the Supreme Court held that the Constitution’s Bill of Rights does not protect voting as an “inalienable natural” right – an idea the dissidents passionately rejected – significantly reducing the chances that legal challenges to restrictions will be successful.