The Kansas Republican Party is calling for Paul Davis to withdraw from a lawsuit over voter registration.
Davis, a former Democratic candidate for governor, is challenging a rule that cancels incomplete voter registrations after 90 days. He’s also challenging the underlying proof of citizenship requirement in Kansas law that has put thousands of voter registrations on hold.
Kelly Arnold, chair of the Kansas Republican Party, calls the lawsuit hypocrisy because Davis voted in favor of the law while in the Kansas Legislature.
“What has influenced him to change his mind on this, or why has he taken up the case against a bill that he just recently supported?” says Arnold.
In response, Davis says that the ethics law Arnold refers to is not applicable in this case.
“This is just a media stunt by the Republican Party trying to deflect attention away from the fact that the secretary of state is trying to purge 36,000 Kansans from the voter rolls,” he says.
In the lawsuit, Davis is also challenging a state requirement that many voter registration applications include proof of citizenship documents. More than 30,000 registrations are on hold because they’re lacking those documents.