Kansas stops enforcing a law against impersonating election officials

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Kansas stops enforcing a law against impersonating election officials

2024-08-01 08:37 Last Updated At：08:41

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas is no longer enforcing a 3-year-old law making it a felony to impersonate election officials as it faces a legal challenge from critics who argue that the law has hindered efforts to register new voters.

Attorneys for the state and groups suing over the law agreed on stopping its enforcement, and District Judge Teresa Watson in Shawnee County, home to the state capital of Topeka, issued an order earlier this week ratifying their agreement. Her order will remain in effect at least until another court hearing after the November election.

The law made “falsely representing” an elections official punishable by up to 13 months in prison for a first-time offender, though two years' probation would have been the most likely sentence. The crime includes causing someone to believe another person is an election official. The Republican-controlled Legislature enacted the law in 2021 by overriding a veto by Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly.

The groups challenging the law argue it's so vague that volunteers who register voters could face criminal charges if someone mistakenly believes they are election officials, even if those volunteers are clear that they aren't verbally, in writing or on signs. State officials have scoffed at that argument, but groups curtailed their activities, including one involved in the lawsuit, Loud Light, which seeks to register young people.

“We are fired up and ready to register thousands of young Kansans to vote again,” Davis Hammet, Loud Light's president, said in a statement Wednesday, describing the law as a ”voter registration suppression scheme."

The law was among a series of measures tightening election laws approved by GOP legislators who said they were trying to bolster public confidence in elections. There's no evidence of significant fraud, but baseless conspiracies continue to circulate because of former President Donald Trump's false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen from him.

This year, GOP lawmakers hoped to settle the groups' legal challenge by rewriting the law so that someone would have to intentionally impersonate an election official to be guilty of a crime. They had the backing of the state's top elections official, Secretary of State Scott Scwhab, a Republican who has vouched for the integrity of state elections.

Schwab spokesperson Whitney Tempel said the goal was "reducing voter confusion,” but lawmakers tied the change to another measure limiting the spending of federal funds on state elections. Kelly vetoed it, and Republicans couldn't override her.

“The recent temporary injunction issued underscores our concerns and continues to highlight the need to clarify this law,” Tempel said in a statement.

Besides Loud Light, the other groups involved in the lawsuit are the League of Women Voters of Kansas, the Kansas Appleseed Center for Law and Justice and the Topeka Independent Living Resource Center, which advocates for voters with disabilities.

Watson initially refused in 2021 to block the law's enforcement and a state Court of Appeals panel later dismissed the case. But in December, the Kansas Supreme Court revived it, saying the law is vague enough for the groups to contest it.

In May, in a follow-up ruling that involved challenges to other election laws, the Supreme Court directed Watson to reconsider blocking the anti-impersonation law.

But that received far less attention than what the Supreme Court said about voting rights generally.

An article of the state constitution allows people 18 and older to vote, it requires “proper proofs” of their eligibility. A 4-3 majority of the Supreme Court declared that the constitution's Bill of Rights doesn't protect voting as an “inalienable natural” right — an idea the dissenters passionately rejected — significantly lessening the chances that legal challenges to restrictions will succeed.

Britain and France accuse Russia's Putin of delaying Ukraine ceasefire efforts

2025-04-04 16:43 Last Updated At：16:51

BRUSSELS (AP) — Britain and France on Friday accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of dragging his feet in ceasefire talks aimed at halting his country's invasion of Ukraine and demanded a swift response from Moscow after weeks of U.S. efforts to secure a truce.

Russia has effectively rejected a U.S. proposal for a full and immediate 30-day halt in the fighting. A Kremlin official said Monday that Moscow views efforts to end its more than three-year war with Ukraine as “a drawn-out process.”

“Our judgment is that Putin continues to obfuscate, continues to drag his feet,” British Foreign Secretary David Lammy told reporters at NATO headquarters, standing alongside his French counterpart Jean-Noel Barrot in a symbolic show of unity.

A Kremlin envoy who visited Washington this week for talks with Trump administration officials said Friday that further meetings will be needed to resolve outstanding issues.

Kirill Dmitriev told Russian reporters that “the dialogue will take some time, but it’s proceeding positively and constructively.”

He criticized what he called a “well-coordinated media campaign and attempts by various politicians to spoil Russia-U.S. relations, distort what Russia says, and cast Russia and its leaders in a negative way.”

Dmitriev, the head of Russia’s sovereign wealth fund, was sanctioned by the Biden administration after the invasion of Ukraine, and the U.S. had to temporarily lift the restrictions to allow him to travel to Washington this week.

Meanwhile, the war of attrition continued to claim civilian lives. A Russian Shahed drone struck a residential area of Kharkiv late Thursday, killing five people and injuring 32, according to Mayor Ihor Terekhov. Kharkiv is Ukraine's second-largest city.

Civilian areas in three other Ukrainian regions were also hit, officials said. The Ukrainian air force said Russia fired 78 strike and decoy drones overnight.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said air defenses destroyed 107 Ukrainian drones.

Russian forces are preparing to launch a fresh military offensive in the coming weeks to maximize pressure on Ukraine and strengthen the Kremlin’s negotiating position in the ceasefire talks, according to Ukrainian government and Western military analysts.

Russia is preparing a major, multi-pronged ground offensive along the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line as muddy fields dry out and allow tanks, armored vehicles and other heavy equipment to roll into key positions across the countryside.

Britain and France are helping to lead a multinational effort known as the “coalition of the willing” to set up a force that might police any future peace agreement in Ukraine. A senior Ukrainian official said earlier this week that between 10 and 12 countries have said they are ready to join the coalition.

Lammy said that while Putin should be accepting a ceasefire, “he continues to bombard Ukraine. It’s civilian population. It’s energy supplies. We see you, Vladimir Putin. We know what you are doing.”

Barrot said that Ukraine had accepted ceasefire terms three weeks ago, and that Russia now "owes an answer to the United States.” U.S. President Donald Trump has expressed frustration with Putin and Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy after he promised last year to bring the war to a swift conclusion.

“Russia has been flip-flopping, continuing its strikes on energy infrastructure, continuing its war crimes,” Barrot said. “It has to be ‘yes.’ It has to be ‘no.’ It has to be a quick answer.”

He said that Russia shows no intention of halting its military campaign, noting that Putin on Monday ordered a call-up intended to draft 160,000 conscripts for a one-year tour of compulsory military service.

The two foreign ministers pledged to continue helping to build up Ukraine’s armed forces – the country’s best security guarantee since the U.S. took any prospect of NATO membership off the table.

Coalition army chiefs were due to meet in Kyiv on Friday. Defense ministers from the group will meet at NATO headquarters next Thursday.

Novikov reported from Kyiv, Ukraine.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine