The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) [advocacy website] on Thursday asked a federal judge to issue an injunction pending the outcome of a lawsuit filed in February [complaint; press release]. The ACLU is attempting to block [ACLU case statement] a Kansas state law that requires individuals to prove American citizenship when they are registering to vote while applying for a driver’s license. The Kansas law took effect January 1, 2013 and was passed [Reuters report] in an attempt to deter voter fraud. The ACLU claims that Kansas is violating the Motor-Votor Law of 1993 [DOJ backgrounder] by demanding additional proof of citizenship. The ACLU is concerned that as many as 20,000 people, namely young people and minorities, are prevented from registering to vote because they do not have the means to comply with this law. The lawsuit, which names Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobash as a defendant, is set for trial in 2017.

Voting rights have been a contentious issue in the US recently. Last month an Ohio judge granted an emergency order [JURIST report] allowing 17-year-olds who will turn 18 by the November election to vote in the recent Ohio primary. Also last month the Fifth Circuit agreed to reconsider [JURIST report] Texas’ voter ID law before the entire court. Last May the New Hampshire Supreme Court struck down [JURIST report] a 2012 law requiring voters to be state residents, not just domiciled in the state. Last March Oregon Governor Kate Brown signed a new law [JURIST report] that made Oregon the first state in the nation to institute automatic voter registration. In November 2014 a federal appeals court rejected [JURIST report] a Kansas rule that required prospective voters to show proof-of-citizenship documents before registering using a federal voter registration form.