The self-serving attempt by the Trump administration and Republican cronies like Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach to fight what is in reality virtually non-existent voter fraud with measures that would restrict voting rights has hit a major roadblock in Indiana.
A federal judge in that state blocked Indiana from implementing a new law that would have removed voters from the state’s electoral rolls if their names were listed in a controversial database designed by Kobach.
U.S. District Judge Tanya Walton Pratt ruled in favor of the American Civil Liberties Union in its suit against the state on behalf of Common Cause Indiana and other voting rights groups, declaring the 2017 Indiana law a violation of the National Voter Registration Act, according to Reuters.
The law would have used the Crosscheck system that Kobach designed in Kansas which matches voters by name and date of birth and points out the possibility of duplicate voters. Unfortunately for Kobach and his phony voter fraud crusade, the Crosscheck system has been debunked as producing results that are primarily false positives and has prevented eligible voters, particularly minority voters, from properly being able to cast their ballots.
“The court agrees with Common Cause that the greater public interest is in allowing eligible voters to exercise their right to vote without being disenfranchised without notice,” Pratt wrote in her ruling.
“While the defendants have a strong public interest in protecting the integrity of voter registration rolls and the electoral process, they have other procedures in place that can protect that public interest that do not violate the NVRA,” she continued.
The ruling means that the state cannot enforce the restrictive provisions of the law while its constitutionality is being challenged in the courts.
“Hoosier-elected officials should do all that they can to promote voter engagement,” the executive director of ACLU of Indiana, Jane Heneger, said in a written statement. “Today’s ruling condemns actions to the contrary that threaten to suppress the vote. Voting is our constitutional right and we must ensure every voice is heard.”
While Republicans seem interested in making sure that only their voices are heard at the ballot box, Indiana’s Secretary of State has not yet indicated whether the state would appeal the judge’s decision.
Kobach is continuing his tilting at windmills with his discredited fight attempting to prove the fraudulent claim that millions of voters illegally cast ballots in the 2016 presidential elections, handing the popular vote victory to Hillary Clinton, an embarrassing fact that President Trump wants to make disappear. The much vaunted Commission on Election Integrity that Kobach led to investigate the matter collapsed without ever holding a single meeting or issuing a report, indicating the futility of investigating President Trump’s delusional fever dreams.
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