In 2013, the State of Kansas implemented their own statewide version of the SAVE America Act, known as the SAFE Act, that had been legislatively passed two years earlier.
Kansas lawmakers cited unfounded rumors of undocumented immigrants at meatpacking factories in the southwest part of the state trying to vote while debating the legislation.
Like the SAVE Act would require, Kansans had to prove citizenship in order to be registered to vote, by showing a passport, birth certificate, or naturalization papers.
By 2018, a federal judge struck the law down as unconstitutional, after blocking the registration of about 31,000 otherwise eligible voters, or about 12% of all first time registrants.
The judge also found that it had caught and thwarted only 28 noncitizen applicants in the time it was in place. Prior to its implementation, only 39 noncitizens had successfully registered to vote — in the 13 years prior to the SAFE Act’s chaotic disenfranchisement.
One of the plaintiffs in the successful lawsuit against the SAFE Act was Steven Fish who was a hopeful first time voter.
According to the lawsuit, the driver’s license examiner did not inform him that he needed to prove citizenship, so he believed he had registered. Fish later found out he was not registered, and was ineligible to vote.
Fish didn’t have a passport, and having been born on a since-shuttered military base, was unable to track down his birth certificate, and was unsure how to get a replacement. Two years later, his sister found a copy of the birth certificate in his mother’s safe, who had recently passed away. After not being able to vote in the 2014 elections, he was able to vote in 2016.
There were other plaintiffs who tried to register through routine processes, but were placed in a suspended status when proper documentation was not provided.
According to the lawsuit, a number of people were given bad information, including at the DMV. Others gave up when they couldn’t come up with the proper documents on time.
“One of the problems of this case was that the law was implemented shortly before an election,” Lauren Bonds, a lawyer on the case said. “So a lot of people, even if they were on top of things, were in a position where they weren’t able to get the documents they needed to fix their ballots” once they discovered they had not met the new registration requirements.
On June 18, 2018, U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson issued a 118-page ruling holding that the Kansas law imposed an undue burden on eligible voters and violated the National Voter Registration Act. It also violated the Constitution, Robinson ruled, by infringing on the right to vote under the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.
Kansas fought the ruling, but a federal appeals court upheld it. In 2020, the Supreme Court declined to hear its appeal.