Geraldo Rivera Calls Out Kansas GOP Official For Drafting A Voter ID Law Aimed At “Suppressing The Vote”

Rivera: “This Is An Attempt ... To Restrict Voting By People Who Ordinarily Vote Democratic”

From the October 16 edition of Fox News' The O'Reilly Factor:

Video file

GERALDO RIVERA: First, let me say hello to Secretary Kobach, a man who I consider the intellectual foundation stone of the hard right-wing when it comes to immigration. He's Mr. Anti-Undocumented Immigrant.

KRIS KOBACH (Kansas Secretary of State): Is that a compliment?

RIVERA: And no, but I respect him, he's Ivy League-educated, very bright. A man so keen on this issue that you went to Arizona and argued Arizona's law, lost in the federal courts, and now even in Kansas, as you tried to restrict the voting rights of people in state elections, you must allow them to register even without proof of citizenship in federal elections.

ERIC BOLLING (HOST): Geraldo, it's a law on the books. It's a law on the books.

RIVERA: The New York Times today suggests he is disenfranchising 22,000 people who would be qualified to vote. This is -- this is like a poll tax. This is an attempt by Secretary Kobach to restrict voting by people who would ordinarily vote Democratic. He's a Republican. This is all about partisan politics.

KOBACH: No, no, no.

[CROSSTALK]

BOLLING: Go ahead, Kris, is it a poll tax? Does it restrict voting to Democrats?

KOBACH: No. I don't know if Geraldo knows this or not, but if you don't have your birth certificate, you lost it, guess what? We give you a free one. If you still don't have your documents, we still have a process where you can provide other evidence. And the ACLU, which doesn't like this law, surprise, surprise, they have tried to find -- they've scoured the state for somebody in Kansas who's a U.S. citizen who is unable to register and haven't been able to find anyone.

RIVERA: On your honor, Secretary Kobach, how many cases of voter fraud have you found, where people who are not citizens of the United States have attempted to vote in our elections? How many have you found? You are leading the charge, you are drafting the laws, not only in your own state, but in others. Is it not a fact that you have found less than a dozen cases over several years in the entire state?

KOBACH: No, I'll tell you this. We found over 30 cases of aliens who have either gotten on our voter rolls and registered successfully before our law and we found them afterward, or attempted to register after the law went into effect two years ago and we successfully stopped them. And most of those come from one county that's doing most of the statistics on this. We've got 105 counties, so that's just the tip of the iceberg.

RIVERA: I read an editorial in The Kansas City Star that said that your puffed up allegations about voter fraud are an embarrassment to your state, that this is absolutely --

KOBACH: Well, to a liberal editorial writer.

BOLLING: Go ahead, Kris.

KOBACH: The liberal editorial writer didn't provide any evidence at all. We have provided evidence to a federal court, Geraldo. This isn't just me making up numbers. These are identified individuals.

RIVERA: The federal court rejected your position when it comes to federal elections. Kansas is in this embarrassing position where if someone comes and doesn't have their birth certificate, they're allowed to vote in a federal election but not in a state or a local election. I think that -- what is this about? If it's not about suppressing the vote, what is it about?

KOBACH: You're not accurately stating what the court held. The 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held that if you use the federal form, and fewer than 1 percent of people who register use it, and you don't provide proof of citizenship, right now as the form is currently worded you can go ahead and vote in federal elections only, and we have to allow that. However, the federal form is supposed to be changed to reflect the law of the state in which the people are registering. 

Previously:

New GOP Hearing Will Feature Notorious Right-Wing Media Misinformers

Voter Disenfranchisement That Right-Wing Media Said Wouldn't Happen Is Definitely Happening

Evidence Piles Up Against Right-Wing Media's Defense Of Voter ID

On Fox, Kris Kobach, Who Helped Draft AZ Law, Continues To Deny Law Allows Officials To Take Race Into Account