TPM has just confirmed that Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach has ordered that absentee ballots for overseas military personnel be shipped out immediately without the name of any Democratic candidate on them.

This is a seeming reversal from Kobach’s earlier stated plan to delay the issuance of those ballots until Democrats submitted a new nominee.

If you’re new to the story, the previous Democratic nominee withdrew from the race as part of a pretty obvious but still unconfirmed Dem plan to clear the field for independent Greg Orman to take on incumbent Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS). Kobach, for his part, has been trying to thwart that plan. His political motives are about as thinly veiled as Dems’ were in getting their nominee out of the race in the first place.