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Kansas leaders introduced felony expenses Wednesday in opposition to Joe Ceballos, the mayor of a small metropolis in rural Kansas, alleging he voted in a number of elections however will not be a U.S. citizen.
Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab and Kansas Legal professional Basic Kris Kobach, each elected Republicans, introduced they filed six expenses in Comanche County in opposition to Ceballos, a lawful everlasting resident from Mexico, for voting in elections in 2022, 2023 and 2024.
Ceballos is the mayor of Coldwater and beforehand served as a metropolis councilman.
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States are required by legislation to have mechanisms in place to frequently clear voter registration lists, often known as voter rolls. The method contains utilizing exterior databases to display screen for noncitizens, which Kobach, a longtime immigration hawk and ally of President Donald Trump, mentioned will not be error-proof.
“Noncitizen voting is an actual downside. It isn’t one thing that occurs as soon as in a decade. It’s one thing that occurs pretty continuously,” Kobach mentioned, echoing the broader sentiments of Republicans who say voter fraud is a urgent situation.
Kansas Legal professional Basic Kris Kobach speaks at a rally with President Donald Trump on the Kansas Expocenter Oct. 6, 2018, in Topeka, Kan. (Scott Olson/Getty Photographs)
Ceballos’ expenses, which embody perjury and voting with out being certified, in line with the grievance reviewed by Fox Information Digital, carry a most penalty of greater than 5 years in jail. Ceballos didn’t reply to a request for remark.
Kobach, who beforehand served as Kansas secretary of state, has an extended historical past of pushing for harder immigration enforcement and stricter voter ID legal guidelines. In 2018, he misplaced a high-profile federal lawsuit after making an attempt to implement a state legislation that required voters to offer bodily documentation of U.S. citizenship when registering to vote.
A court docket discovered it exceeded the mandatory necessities to substantiate citizenship, in violation of federal election legal guidelines.
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A voter inserts an absentee voter poll right into a drop field. (AP Picture/Paul Sancya, File)
The court docket mentioned on the time that the state legislation couldn’t “be justified by the scant proof of noncitizen voter fraud earlier than and after the legislation was handed.”
Kobach didn’t element how state officers got here to study that the mayor and former metropolis councilman is allegedly a noncitizen, however he mentioned investigators had “unassailable proof” in opposition to Ceballos.
Bins of signatures are displayed after a convention hosted by Residents for Voter ID on the Nebraska Capitol constructing July 7, 2022, in Lincoln, Neb. (Noah Riffe/Lincoln Journal Star by way of AP)
Kobach mentioned metropolis officers, akin to mayors, are additionally required by legislation to be U.S. residents, which the lawyer normal mentioned was “price noting” however not a felony offense. Ceballos was on the poll for re-election on Election Day, however the official outcomes haven’t been licensed but.
“Largely, our system proper now’s primarily based on belief, belief that when the particular person indicators the registration or indicators the ballot books saying that he’s a certified elector or that he’s a United States citizen, that the particular person is telling the reality,” Kobach mentioned. “On this case, we allege that Mr. Ceballos violated that belief.”
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Kobach and Schwab mentioned they just lately started making the most of a federal authorities database that helps cross-check voter rolls with immigration data that they anticipate will cause them to establish extra voting violations.
Ceballos’ first court docket look is Dec. 3.
