The Kansas Supreme Court has backed measures that seek to ensure that voters are who they say they are when casting a ballot in America’s elections.
The state’s high court dismissed arguments that voters should be able to bypass election security measures due to a “fundamental” right to vote.
The court ruled that there is no “fundamental” right to vote in the state’s Constitution in a case dealing with election integrity safeguards.
The majority upheld that the legislature may adopt “reasonable” requirements, like voter ID and signature matching, to prove that people are who they say they are.
In reaching its conclusion about signature matching, the court dismissed the plaintiffs’ argument that voting is a “fundamental” right under the Kansas Constitution.
Adopting that view would subject voting restrictions to the highest threshold of review, called strict scrutiny.
The review requires a law to be “narrowly tailored” to a “compelling interest.”
The court held that restrictions on voting may pass muster so long as they do not impose additional requirements not mentioned in the Kansas Constitution.
A signature matching requirement does not pose an additional burden on voting, Justice Caleb Stegall wrote for the majority.
Rather, a permissible form of establishing