Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach said Thursday there were no problems with the state’s photo ID requirement to vote during the Nov. 6 general election.
But a few hundred voters might disagree.
According to a story in the Lawrence Journal World, “Out of 1,182,771 votes cast, 838 provisional ballots were issued due to lack of sufficient photo ID, Kobach said. Of those, 306 voters presented ID before the county canvass to make their votes count. That means 532 provisional ballots were not counted.”
Kobach said he checked the provisional ballots after the primary and concluded virtually all of those — which is to say, not quite all — did have photo IDs.
The Secretary of State continues his attempt to protect us from the blue (state) menace by saying he should have the authority to prosecute voter fraud — instead of leaving it up to county attorneys. While there were no reports of voter fraud in our state this year, Kobach says there were 235 cases of alleged voter fraud from 1997-2010, but not one was prosecuted.
The lesson here is to always remember to bring a photo ID when voting, and to only vote once. This law isn’t hard for about 99 percent of us to follow. Those who do have trouble with it, such as elderly people who no longer drive or carry photo IDs, represent a very small group — less than half of 1 percent apparently. More than 500 people didn’t get their votes counted this year  (more than twice the number of alleged fraud cases in 14 years!) but maybe they’ll do better next year. They will if they want their votes to be counted.