Kris Kobach

“I think the president-elect is absolutely correct when he says the number of illegal votes cast exceeds the popular vote margin between him and Hillary Clinton at this point.”

—Kris Kobach, perpetuating a conspiracy theory about massive voter fraud.

Vice Chair of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity

June 11, 2017 – Jan. 3, 2018

An enthusiastic nationalist anti-immigrant activist, Kris Kobach came to notoriety while Kansas’s Secretary of State (2011-19), where he orchestrated a massive voter disenfranchisement campaign targeting minorities through outrageous voter ID laws and attempted purges of registered voters.

An early supporter of what came to be known as the ‘Muslim Travel Ban’, Kobach’s detestable credentials made him a natural pick to lead Trumps sham commission to investigate fallacious claims of widespread voter fraud – the dubiously named the ‘Commission on Election Integrity’.

Despite desperately trying to find and showcase instances of voter fraud, over a 20-year period in one Kansas county with 130,000 voters, Kobach managed to find only 40 non-citizens who attempted to register (most of which were found to be errors and clearly not intentionally misleading), of whom only five even managed to cast a vote. Ironically illustrating – no doubt to his great disappointment – just how exceedingly rare voter fraud really is.

Notables

The Kansas Supreme Court found Kobach’s voter restriction efforts as Secretary of State violated the National Voter Registration Act, as Kobach failed to provide any evidence supporting his claims of massive voter fraud, from the article:

Over a 20-year period, fewer than 40 non-citizens had attempted to register in one Kansas county that had 130,000 voters. Most of those 40 improper registrations were the result of mistakes or confusion rather than intentional attempts to mislead, and only five of the 40 managed to cast a vote.

How the Case for Voter Fraud Was Tester – and Utterly Failed | ProPublica (6.19.18)

ACLU accused Kobach of hiding materials disproving his unsubstantiated claims that wide-spread voter fraud existed.

Civil rights advocates: ‘Confidential’ documents undercut Kobach’s voting fraud claim | LJW (6.21.17)

Used system called “Crosscheck” which claimed to check for alleged double voters from out of state, but was run solely by Kansas, and fraudulently eliminated many legitimate voters from the rolls, particularly those with common names.

Uncovering Kris Kobach’s Anti-Voting History | Brennan Center for Justice (5.11.17)

Pitched a Homeland Security Department plan calling for men and boys from 25 majority Muslim nations, among other immigrants, to register themselves with the federal government upon their immigration to the U.S. – a plan that was eventually instituted.

Vice Chair of the Commission on Election Intergrity