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Fish v. Kobach
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Fish v. Kobach
Fish v. Kobach (officially known since January 19, 2019 as Fish v. Schwab) was a 2018 bench trial in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas in which five Kansas residents, the ACLU and the League of Women Voters contested the legality of the Documentary Proof of Citizenship (DPOC) requirement of the Kansas Secure and Fair Elections (SAFE) Act, which was enacted in 2011 and took effect in 2013.
Kris Kobach, then-Kansas Secretary of State, attempted to claim these procedures were needed to protect the nation from a supposedly massive problem of vote fraud by people not legally allowed to do so, including 11.3 percent of non-citizens residing in the US amounting to some 3.2 million votes in 2016. The plaintiffs in this case claimed there was no evidence to support Kobach's allegations and that tens of thousands of American citizens were unnecessarily removed from voter rolls as a result of the law.
Trial hearings ran from March 6 to 19, 2018, with a contempt hearing for Kobach on March 20 with Chief District Judge Julie A. Robinson presiding. Robinson was appointed to the District court by President George W. Bush in 2001. On May 18 Judge Robinson ruled Kobach in contempt. Final rulings were issued June 18 and 19, 2018. In brief, Judge Robinson found that the defense had presented no credible evidence of the massive problem claimed and instead had erected substantial obstacles to voter registration by people eligible to vote per the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 and the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. She further found defendant Kobach in contempt of court. The verdict was unanimously upheld upon appeal in 2020.
Judge Robinson further generally found the plaintiff's expert witnesses credible while expert witnesses for the defense were often found to be not credible.
Kris Kobach hired Jesse Richman as a paid expert witness in 2018 for Fish v. Kobach. ProPublica summarized Judge Julie Robinson's assessment of Richman's conclusions as "'confusing, inconsistent and methodologically flawed,' and adding that they were 'credibly dismantled' by Ansolabehere. She labeled elements of Richman’s testimony 'disingenuous' and 'misleading,' and stated that she gave his research 'no weight' in her decision."
Richard Hasen called parts of Richman's testimony "social science at its worst."
Hans von Spakovsky, a member of Trump's voter fraud commission, was another expert witness for Kobach whose testimony ProPublica described as having been 'lacerated' by Judge Julie Robinson. She accused him of unsupported and misleading statements as well as false assertions. She said his opinions were based on preconceived beliefs related to his advocacy. "Defendant's expert Hans von Spakovsky is a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation, 'a think tank whose mission [is to] formulate and promote conservative public policies. ... [He] cited a U.S. GAO study for the proposition that the GAO 'found that up to 3 percent of the 30,000 individuals called for jury duty from voter registration roles over a two-year period in just one U.S. district court were not U.S. citizens.' On cross-examination, however, he acknowledged that he omitted the following facts: the GAO study contained information on a total of 8 district courts; 4 of the 8 reported that there was not a single non-citizen who had been called for jury duty; and the 3 remaining district courts reported that less than 1% of those called for jury duty from voter rolls were noncitizens. Therefore, his report misleadingly described the only district court with the highest percentage of people reporting that they were noncitizens, while omitting mention of the 7 other courts described in the GAO report, including 4 that had no incidents of noncitizens on the rolls. ... While [Mr. von Spakovsky's] lack of academic background is not fatal to his credibility ...., his clear agenda and misleading statements ... render his opinions unpersuasive."
Richard Hasen said Spakovsky had a serious credibility problem with a history of not retracting false claims.
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Fish v. Kobach
Fish v. Kobach (officially known since January 19, 2019 as Fish v. Schwab) was a 2018 bench trial in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas in which five Kansas residents, the ACLU and the League of Women Voters contested the legality of the Documentary Proof of Citizenship (DPOC) requirement of the Kansas Secure and Fair Elections (SAFE) Act, which was enacted in 2011 and took effect in 2013.
Kris Kobach, then-Kansas Secretary of State, attempted to claim these procedures were needed to protect the nation from a supposedly massive problem of vote fraud by people not legally allowed to do so, including 11.3 percent of non-citizens residing in the US amounting to some 3.2 million votes in 2016. The plaintiffs in this case claimed there was no evidence to support Kobach's allegations and that tens of thousands of American citizens were unnecessarily removed from voter rolls as a result of the law.
Trial hearings ran from March 6 to 19, 2018, with a contempt hearing for Kobach on March 20 with Chief District Judge Julie A. Robinson presiding. Robinson was appointed to the District court by President George W. Bush in 2001. On May 18 Judge Robinson ruled Kobach in contempt. Final rulings were issued June 18 and 19, 2018. In brief, Judge Robinson found that the defense had presented no credible evidence of the massive problem claimed and instead had erected substantial obstacles to voter registration by people eligible to vote per the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 and the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. She further found defendant Kobach in contempt of court. The verdict was unanimously upheld upon appeal in 2020.
Judge Robinson further generally found the plaintiff's expert witnesses credible while expert witnesses for the defense were often found to be not credible.
Kris Kobach hired Jesse Richman as a paid expert witness in 2018 for Fish v. Kobach. ProPublica summarized Judge Julie Robinson's assessment of Richman's conclusions as "'confusing, inconsistent and methodologically flawed,' and adding that they were 'credibly dismantled' by Ansolabehere. She labeled elements of Richman’s testimony 'disingenuous' and 'misleading,' and stated that she gave his research 'no weight' in her decision."
Richard Hasen called parts of Richman's testimony "social science at its worst."
Hans von Spakovsky, a member of Trump's voter fraud commission, was another expert witness for Kobach whose testimony ProPublica described as having been 'lacerated' by Judge Julie Robinson. She accused him of unsupported and misleading statements as well as false assertions. She said his opinions were based on preconceived beliefs related to his advocacy. "Defendant's expert Hans von Spakovsky is a senior legal fellow at The Heritage Foundation, 'a think tank whose mission [is to] formulate and promote conservative public policies. ... [He] cited a U.S. GAO study for the proposition that the GAO 'found that up to 3 percent of the 30,000 individuals called for jury duty from voter registration roles over a two-year period in just one U.S. district court were not U.S. citizens.' On cross-examination, however, he acknowledged that he omitted the following facts: the GAO study contained information on a total of 8 district courts; 4 of the 8 reported that there was not a single non-citizen who had been called for jury duty; and the 3 remaining district courts reported that less than 1% of those called for jury duty from voter rolls were noncitizens. Therefore, his report misleadingly described the only district court with the highest percentage of people reporting that they were noncitizens, while omitting mention of the 7 other courts described in the GAO report, including 4 that had no incidents of noncitizens on the rolls. ... While [Mr. von Spakovsky's] lack of academic background is not fatal to his credibility ...., his clear agenda and misleading statements ... render his opinions unpersuasive."
Richard Hasen said Spakovsky had a serious credibility problem with a history of not retracting false claims.
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