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Federal judge orders Kansas to register to vote about 18,000 people who lacked citizenship proof

A federal judge on Tuesday ordered Kansas officials to process federal voter-registration applications of about 18,000 Kansans who were turned down for failing to provide documentation of citizenship when they tried to register to vote at state driver’s license facilities.

U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson of Kansas City, Kansas, issued an injunction on behalf of the would-be voters on Tuesday. The Wichita Eagle and the Topeka Capital-Journal have stories, while the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas posted a press release and the decision (PDF).

The Kansas law requiring citizenship proof, as applied to those registering to vote in federal elections at driver’s license facilities, is pre-empted by the more lenient federal motor-voter law, Robinson ruled. Robinson said the federal law does not “run afoul of the states’ rights to establish voting qualifications for federal office.”

The case is Fish v. Kobach.