Two elderly Kansas men have dropped their lawsuit challenging a new state law that requires voters to show photo ID at the polls.
Attorney Jim Lawing said on Thursday Arthur Spry and Charles Hamner asked to have the case dismissed because it would not be heard before this year’s elections.
U.S. District Judge Kathryn Vratil in Kansas City has granted their request for a dismissal.
The judge was still considering whether the case should be heard in federal court or state court, as the two men had wanted.
Spry and Hamner both live in a retirement home in Overbrook, just southeast of Topeka.
They sued Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who wrote the new voter ID law, after Osage County officials refused to count their votes in the November 2012 election.
Their litigation said the ID requirement is “a pernicious attack” on the voting rights of Kansans who, like them, don’t have cars or easy access to the Internet to obtain a free state ID.
They alleged their right to equal protection under the law had been violated.
Legislators enacted the photo ID law at Kobach's urging, as well has his proposal to require new voters to provide proof of their U.S. citizenship to election officials when registering.
