The outpouring of support from across the country has been heartening as concerned citizens have flooded the ACLU of Kansas with emails, calls, and messages asking to help transport voters to the single poll on the edge of town in Dodge City, Kansas.
Through the tireless efforts of numerous volunteers and organizations in Dodge City, the need for transportation for voters appears to be sufficiently covered. We commend everyone who has been directly involved and who has remained engaged.
But Dodge City should draw our attention to a larger picture of the many roadblocks dropped in front of Kansas voters. It should compel us to remain vigilant. Voter suppression efforts take on many forms in policy or practice across the state.
At the ACLU of Kansas, we are learning the many ways that Kansans face barriers to their right to vote.
Some of these barriers are glaring, almost audacious in their burden—as in a single polling location absurdly assigned to over 13,000 voters in minority-majority Dodge City, then moved by the county clerk, who later sends false information to voters.
Others are subtle, as in the county election officials who falsely label our notifications to voters of the nonpartisan Election Protection hotline as “electioneering,” or in the refusal of Johnson County election officials to let voters know whether their votes counted.
We are not finished in Dodge City, and we are not finished in Kansas.
