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Kansas Constitution does not include a right to vote, state Supreme Court majority says
The Kansas Supreme Court offered a mixed bag in a ruling Friday that combined several challenges to a 2021 election law, siding with state officials on one provision, reviving challenges to others and offering the possibility that at least one will be halted before this year’s general election.
But it was the ballot signature verification measure’s majority opinion — which stated there is no right to vote enshrined in the Kansas Constitution’s Bill of Rights — that drew fiery dissent from three of the court’s seven justices.
The measure requires election officials to match the signatures on advance mail ballots to a person’s voter registration record. The state Supreme Court reversed a lower court’s dismissal of that lawsuit, but the majority rejected arguments from voting rights groups that the measure violates state constitutional voting rights.
In fact, Justice Caleb Stegall, writing for the majority, said that the dissenting justices wrongly accused the majority of ignoring past precedent, holding that the court has not identified a “fundamental right to vote” within the state constitution.
“It simply is not there,” Stegall wrote.
Justice Eric Rosen, one of the three who dissented, shot back: “It staggers my imagination to conclude Kansas citizens have no fundamental right to vote under their state constitution.”
“I cannot and will not condone this betrayal of our constitutional duty to safeguard the foundational rights of Kansans,” Rosen added.
Conversely, the high court unanimously sided with the challengers of a different provision that makes it a crime for someone to give the appearance of being an election official. Voting rights groups, including Kansas League of Women Voters and the nonprofit Loud Light, argued the measure suppresses free speech and their ability to register voters as some might wrongly assume volunteers are election workers, putting them at risk of criminal prosecution.
more:
http://apnews.com/article/voting-rights-kansas-supreme-court-0a0b5eea5c57cf54a9597d8a6f8a300e?
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