By Morgan Chilson | senior reporter
Good morning! In election news, we take a look at Attorney General Kris Kobach’s track record with witnesses whose credibility is uncertain and highlight a Republican former governor who stepped forward to support Roger Marshall. A Kansan talks about double-checking that he’s still registered to vote.
Stay dry out there and get ready for the real chill of fall, coming soon! Bonfires, anyone?
Kansas AG has a history of using unreliable expert witnesses in high-profile cases
TOPEKA — A woman told a Lawrence court earlier this month about using a bathroom in the Kansas Statehouse when she was a 19-year-old intern for a state representative.
“As I was using the restroom, it was apparent to me that the person who was in the stall right next to me was quite clearly a man,” said the woman, who testified anonymously during an Oct. 2 hearing on a law that restricts bathroom use based on sex assigned at birth.
“I could tell this by the way that the individual was clearly standing to pee,” she said, according to court transcripts.
The woman who testified anonymously is one of several witnesses Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach has brought forward in state cases whose bias and credibility has been questioned.
Former Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback steps into US Senate campaign to endorse Roger Marshall
TOPEKA — Former U.S. Sen. and Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback endorsed the reelection of Republican Roger Marshall in the toss-up U.S. Senate campaign with Democratic challenger Adam Hamilton.
Brownback, with a 30-year record as a Kansas conservative, said he was puzzled people approached him to inquire about who he intended to vote for in the Nov. 3 showdown. He took to social media to share unequivocal support for Marshall. In doing so, Brownback exhibited no fondness for U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer, the New York Democrat, and aligned himself with President Donald Trump.
OPINION
I updated my Kansas voter registration online. But the process left me with nagging questions.
By Huascar Medina
Tuesday was the last day to update your voter registration for the November election.
I updated my voter registration because I have recently moved from Shawnee County to Douglas County and because I’m worried about the unfounded claims of large-scale voter fraud by immigrants. My vote matters, and we have seen attempts to remove voters. I still remember when Kris Kobach planned to remove 30,000 voter applications in 2015. His recent probe into voter fraud allegations in Kansas drew national attention.
Trump pressed states for info on millions of voters in the midterms. It’s mostly failed.
Three weeks before Election Day, the Trump administration’s sprawling project to send sensitive personal information on millions of voters to the Department of Homeland Security has been declared illegal by a federal judge.
The blistering court decision comes after the Department of Justice pressured or sued states for their voters’ information and then, according to court records and federal documents, turned over the data it obtained to a sub-agency of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.
‘Labor guides’ can help dispel myths pregnant women find online
Providing “labor guides” to pregnant women helps combat misinformation that an increasing number of patients are getting from social media or artificial intelligence, according to a recent study.
Dr. Samuel Melville, a resident-physician in obstetrics and gynecology at Oregon Health & Science University and the lead author of the study, said he frequently hears patients quoting social media or AI when resisting medical interventions, such as inducing the pregnancy with medication to encourage stalled labor.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Kansas Reflector staff will participate in the following free public forums.
5:30 p.m. Oct. 19, Frank Carlson Library in Concordia. Host: NCK Voters.
6 p.m. Dec. 3, Prairie Star Restaurant in Manhattan. Host: League of Women Voters of Manhattan and Riley County.
If you're interested in having us talk in your town, email Sherman Smith at [email protected].
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