Rampant fraud in license-plate vote? Where’s Kris Kobach now that we really need him? | Opinion

I hate to be the one to have to tell you this, but there’s widespread voting fraud going on in Kansas as you read this.

I’m speaking, of course, of the online polling to pick a design for new license plates.

It’s hard to overestimate the stakes of this decision to our society.

It’s captivated Kansas’ attention since last month, when Gov. Laura Kelly released the Department of Motor Vehicles’ choice for a new plate.

That one was a gold-and-black monstrosity that was near-universally panned for its similarity to New York plates and its use of the school colors of the University of Missouri, the historic rival of KU.

Kelly soon announced that the oops would be undone through a public-participation process.

Our choices now are two more-or-less plain plates or one of three Kansas-cliche designs — sunflowers, wheat or the Native-American archer statue atop the Capitol dome. In an earlier column, I predicted the sunflower and wheat options, but I’d completely forgotten about the guy on the top of the Capitol and how often he shows up in state PR, so sorry about that.

Anyway, there I was at the state’s website, getting ready to cast my vote for my plate of choice. I was absolutely floored when I read the voting instructions: “Kansans can vote on their favorite design as many times as they’d like between 9 a.m. CT on Monday, December 11, 2023, and 5 p.m. CT on Friday, December 15, 2023.”

Kansans can vote “as many times as they’d like?”

What’s that about?

I tested the voting system a couple of ways.

I cast one vote using my Google browser. The system responded with the message “Your vote has been received. Thank you for voting! You may now close this window.” I refreshed the page and tried to vote again. It wouldn’t let me.

So I switched to the Firefox browser and voted for a different plate. Then I tried Google again, and this time it let me vote for a third plate.

For the record, I’m voting once for each of the five choices, so my investigation shouldn’t affect the outcome.

I used variants on my name and both my home and work ZIP codes to see if that had any effect on my ability to vote. It didn’t.

So, it appears as long as you can type a name and look up a Kansas ZIP code, you can vote — in state, out of state, in another country — even (gasp) if you’re an immigrant.

As Yoda might say, Outraged, I am.

If the DMV actually cared what we think, they would have put in a voting system that is not so easy to circumvent — and without the open invitation to circumvent it.

My first thought was: “Where’s Kris Kobach now that we really need him?”

Our attorney general and former secretary of state has spent a lifetime looking for fraud in all the wrong places. So what’s he doing now that it’s staring him in the face?

Next to nothing.

Two days ago on Twitter, or X, or whatever Elon Musk calls it this week, Kobach posted an image of a sixth plate that isn’t on the state-selected list.

The Kobach-favored plate hits the trifecta — sunflowers, wheat stalks and the bowman statue. Talk about trying to please everybody.

Where’s that obsessive fervor for voting fraud that we’ve come to expect from Kobach? AWOL.

So in his absence, it’s up to me to recommend scrapping the current process and replacing it with one where voters have to provide proof of citizenship — a simple scan of your birth certificate, passport, naturalization documents or gun license should suffice.

We also need proof of residency, and that you actually have a car to put a license plate on. That could be covered with scans of your driver’s license, car registration and proof of insurance (just in case).

Only then will we be able to say that the voice of Kansas has been well and truly heard when it comes to the monumental decision of which clip-art we want to hang on the back of our cars for the next decade or so.

As our state motto says: Ad Astra Per Aspera — To the Stars with Aspirin.