News & Commentary

A pair of residents in Dodge City, Kansas, first sued the city a year ago, alleging the current at-large election method used to elect city commissioners denies Dodge City's Latino residents an equal opportunity to participate in the municipal political process.

A leading Kansas civil rights organization says an estimated 30,000 people living in the state should be informed they have the right to vote. The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas launched a campaign to reach out to Kansans with felony records and encourage them to register to vote.

The ACLU of Kansas says that around 30,000 Kansans who have completed their sentences for felony convictions are unaware that they have the right to vote. To that end, a new effort has been launched to inform them of their restored voting rights, recruit volunteers and to get more voters to vote.

“Counting provisional ballots is an incredibly important part of ensuring that everybody has the opportunity to participate” in elections, says Sharon Brett, Legal Director of the ACLU of Kansas.

“When we’re talking about something like autonomy and dignity and privacy those are pretty expansive rights and government intrusion on those rights should have a high level of scrutiny to ensure there is not a deep government invasion into the personal decisions that we have,” said Sharon Brett.

“Ms. Dreiling has for months been disappointingly dismissive of the need for an accessible polling location as repeatedly stated by many of the Hays voters she serves,” said Micah Kubic, executive director of the ACLU of Kansas.

Last month, the ACLU of Kansas sent a letter to local election officials urging them to allow transgender people to vote, regardless of the gender marker on their driver's licenses and other forms of ID.

Two college students and a nationwide voter rights organization have called on a Kansas county clerk to help add a polling location to the Fort Hays State University campus to increase voter turnout, however, that plea continues to be overlooked.

The ACLU of Kansas and nine other organizations have been calling on Wyandotte County Election Commissioner Michael Abbott to provide ballots in languages other than English to accommodate the county’s growing minority population.