On June 18 and 19, 2018, Judge Robinson published 118 pages of "Findings of fact and conclusions of law" in this case. In broad strokes, she sided with the plaintiffs on most of the major points in question and with the defense on a few relatively minor points.
Substantive rulings Most importantly, "the Court finds in favor of the Plaintiffs in the
Fish case," establishing that the
National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (the "motor voter" act) takes precedence over the Kansas DPOC requirements. In addition, the "Court further finds in favor of Plaintiff Bednasek in his constitutional challenge", concluding that the DPOC violated the
fourteenth amendment. In particular, "Defendant shall strictly comply with the directives in this Order meant to enforce the Court's permanent injunction of the DPOC law and K.A.R. sec. 7-23-15. It is further ordered that Defendant shall attend 6 hours [of
continuing legal education (CLE) on civil rules of procedure or evidence] in addition to any other CLE education required by his law license for the 2018-2019 reporting year."
Lesser findings and rulings In addition to findings regarding the witness testimony above: Defendant Nick Jordan, Kansas Secretary of Revenue, was dismissed from the case. Mr. Fish's complaint was declared moot, because "in September or October 2016, he relocated within Douglas County and changed his address with the DOV in person. ... He is now registered to vote ... not due to the Court's preliminary injunction, but his voluntary action of reapplying to register to vote at which time he provided DPOC."
Magnitude of the problems "The voting rate among purported noncitizen registrations on [a Kansas temporary driver license] match list is around 1%, whereas the voting rate among registrants in Kansas more generally is around 70%." By comparison, "Defendant already has prosecutorial authority over Kansas election crimes. Yet, since obtaining this authority, and despite claiming to have located 129 instances of noncitizen registration in Kansas, Defendant has filed zero criminal complaints against noncitizens for registering to vote." But "looking closely at those [129] records reduces that number to 67 at most. Even these 67 instances are a liberal estimate because it includes attempted registrations after the DPOC law was passed, a larger universe than what the Tenth Circuit asked the Court to evaluate. Only 39 successfully registered to vote. ... And several of the individual records of those who registered or attempted to register show errors on the part of State employees, and/or confusion on the part of applicants." Moreover, those 39 represent only "0.002% of all registered voters in Kansas as of January 1, 2013 (1,762,330). Defendant Kobach "insists that [published numbers of noncitizens voting] are just 'the tip of the iceberg.' This trial was his opportunity to produce credible evidence of that iceberg, but he failed to do so. ... Instead, the Court draws the more obvious conclusion that there is no iceberg; only an icicle, largely created by confusion and administrative error."
Summary of impact on democracy in Kansas The court found that "31,089 total applicants ... were denied registration for failure to provide DPOC, ... [which] represented 12.4% of new voter registrations between January 1, 2013 and December 11, 2015". Meanwhile, Kansas Secretary of State Kobach, who claimed this was a massive problem, provided evidence of only 39 cases of non-citizens having registered to vote in Kansas, which represented only "0.002% of all registered voters". == References ==