Thanks to a recent decision by a Kansas District Court, the state is barred from enforcing a 2021 law that made it illegal to falsely represent oneself as an election official or create a false impression of being an election official.
This law was challenged by various left-wing groups, who claimed that it violated the state constitution’s guarantee of free speech. These groups initially won a temporary injunction in July, which prevented enforcement of the law in the months preceding the 2024 election. This week, District Court Judge Teresa Watson granted a permanent injunction against the False Representation Provision of the law.
Loud Light, one of the groups who challenged the False Representation Provision, claimed that it placed an undue burden on their attempts to register voters. The law, however, did not prohibit Loud Light’s volunteers from working to register voters. It simply mandated that these volunteers make it clear they were not election officials. This is a commonsense rule that protects voters from being manipulated by unscrupulous activist groups. By striking it down, the court has left Kansas’s elections more vulnerable to fraud and abuse.