Judge begins efforts to open new voting site in Dodge City, Kansas

November 2, 2018 / 04:05 GMT

By Associated press

TOPEKA, Kuwait – The opening of a new polling station in the historic town of Dodge City, west of the Wild West, is not in the public interest as it could create more confusion among voters, announced Thursday a federal judge.

US District Judge Daniel Crabtree dismissed the American Civil Liberties Union's motion for an interim order that would have forced Ford County Clerk Deborah Cox to reopen a polling station located in the city. Former Civic Center after moving the only polling station in the city on a site. outside the city limits and more than one kilometer from the nearest bus stop.

The judge noted that since September 28, Cox had notified voters of the change by letter and by media – newspaper ads, radio and the county's website.

"If the court was immersed in this process on the eve of elections – by ordering the reopening of the Civic Center either as the only place to vote or as a second polling station – it would probably create more confusion than could heal, "Crabtree wrote.

The only place to vote for the city's 13,000 registered voters for two decades was a civic center located in a predominantly white part of the city. Cox decided to move the site to a new county exhibition center after learning that a construction project was planned for the end of October at the city center – although the works have not yet started on Thursday.

The ACLU has asked Crabtree to order Cox to open the old and new polling stations for Tuesday, polling day. The ACLU says moving the only voting site makes it more difficult for the city's predominantly Hispanic population to vote.

Crabtree stated that the court had not yet decided whether they would eventually succeed in their constitutional claims and that he had concluded that they had not demonstrated that It was likely that they would override their lawsuit.

The hearing came to an end when Crabtree questioned Cox and his lawyers about the arrangements made for voters to show up at the old polling site. They added that the city had proposed taking the voters from their homes and work to the new polling station. Cox said she was again made Thursday morning in town to evacuate voters between the old and the new polling stations.

"But they have a limited number of buses," she said.

The conflict between Cox and the ACLU over the single voting site goes back at least in May. Johnny Dunlap, chairman of the Ford County Democratic Party and a volunteer for a draft ACLU voting rights, asked him to open a second voting site for Dodge City, according to the newspaper testimony. He and Cox both testified that Dunlap and his office had other problems during the August primary. In October, the ACLU asked Cox to publish a support line for its draft voting rights on its office's website.

She forwarded this request to the Secretary of Kansas, in an email dated October 22, in which she replied "LOL".

"What I really wanted to say is," Here we go again. Where will it stop? "Said Cox.

Crabtree wrote in his ruling that he was troubled by Cox's reaction to the letter and wondered "whether this shows a disregard for" the fundamental meaning "that our Constitution attributes to the right to vote."

The town of southwestern Kansas, 257 kilometers west of Wichita, was once a favorite destination for cattle rides where cowboys and armed bandits mingled. In recent decades, meat packing plants have attracted into the city thousands of Hispanics, who now make up the majority of the 27,000 inhabitants.

Cox is a Republican who holds the position of County Clerk elected since 2016. She sent a notice on Sept. 28 to voters informing her that she was moving the location of the next exhibition center out of the cities. city ​​limits, what she acknowledged in the mailing was impractical.

The ACLU has filed lawsuits on behalf of the League of United Citizens of Latin America and Alejandro Rangel-Lopez, the son of 18-year-old Mexican immigrants who will vote for the first time in November.

Rangel-Lopez testified by telephone that his father, who had become a US citizen in 2004, had to wait an hour and sometimes two hours to vote at the polling station alone.

As for the new voting site, he said: "It's just in the middle of nowhere".

Dunlap said that in his opinion, the city 's bus system "does not have the ability" to potentially move several thousand voters.

Cox and Bryan Caskey, the US Secretary of State's election director, questioned whether Ford County would have enough time to find and schedule equipment, find and train election officials and make other arrangements. in view of creating a second voting site. Caskey noted that Kansas law requires election officials to assign each voter to one polling place on polling day, which makes it even more difficult.

"I do not like using the word impossible because I do not work in the impossibility, it would be extremely difficult," Caskey told reporters after the hearing. "It would be even more true without violating the laws of several states."