The Latest: Witnesses take stand in Kansas voting law case

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — The Latest on a legal challenge to Kansas election laws on voter registration (all times local):

2:17 p.m.

Charles Stricker says he thought he was registered to vote until he showed up to the polls in 2014.

Stricker testified Tuesday in federal court in a Kansas challenging a Kansas law that requires proof of citizenship to register to vote. He told the court he felt confused and embarrassed as he filled out a provisional ballot at a designated table.

His vote didn’t count.

The <a target=”&mdash;blank” href=”http://www.cjonline.com/news/20180306/in-trial-over-kansas-voting-law-residents-recount-convoluted-restrictions”>Topeka Capital Journal</a> reports the American Civil Liberties Union called Stricker and another witness to demonstrate how legal residents were affected by the strictest registration law in the nation.

Stricker says he made two trips to the local motor vehicle office on the final day he could register to vote and left with the assumption he was registered.

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11 p.m.

An attorney challenging a Kansas law that requires proof of citizenship to register to vote says the restriction has kept an estimated 22,000 people from voting, with a large percentage being young people and independent voters.

Dale Ho, director for the Voting Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union, offered that estimate during opening statements Tuesday in a lawsuit over the law’s requirement that people provide documents such as a birth certificate or passport when they register. He said he would call experts to bolster arguments that the law is burdensome and inconsistently enforced.

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who is representing himself as the defendant in the lawsuit, countered the law has successfully kept thousands on noncitizens from voting. He said an expert will testify the number could be as high as 18,000.

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