A number of you have written asking if Wikipedia is wrong. They cannot believe that Kris Kobach, the man whose awesome educational background is described in Wikipedia, is the same man who spends his time attacking 21st Century windmills. Those asking the question should remember that Don Quixote de la Mancha, too, was an educated man, who saw in windmills foes to overcome. For Don Quikobach de la Kansas, the windmill has been replaced by the electoral system.
Don Quikobach graduated with highest honors as an undergraduate from Harvard, went on to Oxford where he earned an MA and PhD in politics, and from there, went on to Yale Law School. His post graduate career is proof that, as one university president said of college graduates, although they had graduated, you could never be sure they were educated men. Don Quikobach is proof of the pudding. His academic credentials notwithstanding, his life is filled with windmills that serve as his opponents and he is the hero of all who, like him, focus on those perceived enemies.
Don Quikobach’s favorite windmill is voter fraud. No matter how often he is told that there is no evidence of voter fraud, he continues to detect it and remains determined to defeat it. As Secretary of State of Kansas, Don Quikobach tried all manner of devices to make it more difficult for people to vote. When the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2013, that states could not impose proof of citizenship requirements on those registering to vote in federal elections, Don Quikobach persisted in his efforts to make it more difficult for people in Kansas to register to vote. He joined in a lawsuit seeking to force the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to add a requirement for proof of citizenship to the U.S. voter registration form used in Kansas. The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals blocked imposition of that requirement. Undaunted, Don Quikobach engaged in a series of actions intended to make it more difficult for citizens to vote. He went so far as to propose that the votes of those who registered in Kansas using the U.S. registration form, only be counted for U.S. and not Kansas races. He was again thwarted by the courts. In his attempt to apply the birth certificate requirement to federal elections, the windmill at which he tilted was abruptly removed from the field by the federal judge overseeing the law suit. In turning down his request that proof of citizenship be required before those seeking to register could do so, she observed: “There is evidence of only three instances where noncitizens actually voted in a federal election between 1995 and 2013.” She further observed that during that period, only 14 non-citizens attempted to register.
Although Don Quikobach was unsuccessful in tilting at Kansas windmills, thanks to the national election that took place in 2016, Don Quikobach has been given a new assignment by a president as delusional as he. His assigned task is to tilt at the non-existent windmills representing voter fraud that both he and the man who appointed him, believe occurred on a national scale. He is being assisted in that noble cause by none other than the vice president of the United States, Michael Pence aka Sancho Panza Pence. Sancho Panza Pence is the chair of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Electoral-Integrity that is charged with uncovering voter fraud and Don Quikobach is its vice chair. The first field of windmills they have discovered is found in New Hampshire.
Although Don Quikobach had a distinguished academic career, the years that separate him from his education have dulled his legal skills and intellectual ability. His foray into the voting fields of New Hampshire have offered sad proof that his legal education was for naught. In a triumphant piece in Breitbart News, he gleefully howls that there is “proof” that 5,513 voters who voted in New Hampshire in 2016 were not eligible to vote. He bases this on the fact that those voters used out of state driver’s licenses for identification when they registered, but then failed to obtain New Hampshire drivers’ licenses or register motor vehicles in New Hampshire, there is nothing in New Hampshire law to suggest that the requirements on which he relies exist. There is no legal requirement in New Hampshire that automobile registration take place in order to validate the vote of someone using an out of state driver’s license as identification. There is no requirement that someone using an out of state driver’s license as identification when registering, obtain a New Hampshire driver’s license after voting. Don Quikobach does not care. Neither facts nor the law are permitted to replace preconceived ideas in the mythical world in which he lives. In that respect he is very much like the man who created the commission on which he serves. The two men complement each other perfectly. So sad.
