Take a look at the email Newby sent in June to Kobach: “I think I would enter the job empowered to lead the way I want to.”
And there was this communication from Newby to the Kansas secretary of state: “I wanted you in the loop, in part because of other issues in the past with the (Election Assistance Commission). I also don’t want you thinking that you can’t count on me in an upcoming period that will tax our resources.”
Then, bingo, early this year came the restrictive decision by Newby.
In retrospect, the close ties between the two men make it appear that Newby went to Washington and decided to impose some ugly Kobach-style restrictions that could affect the voting rights of thousands of Americans.
Yes, including some of those back in Kansas, the home state of both men.
All of this is frustrating for the people who have worked so hard across this country to battle the wrongheaded notion that voting rules must be tightened because voter fraud is “rampant.”
That’s Kobach’s siren song to the ultra-conservative crowd in Kansas that has elected him to office. It’s how he got his powers to prosecute voter fraud, powers he’s used so far to almost comically limited effect.
That’s because there is no widespread voter fraud. It’s a dangerous byproduct of Kobach’s ideological imagination.