The Kansas Secretary of State is one of three high-level, elected Republicans looking at whether President Obama should be removed from the official state ballot.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that Kris Kobach is acting on a complaint filed by a Manhattan resident on “birther” concerns over the President’s birth certificate.
I don’t think it’s a frivolous objection, Kobach told the Capital-Journal’s Tim Carpenter. I do think the factual record could be supplemented.
The complaint is being reviewed by the State Objections Board, made up of Secretary of State Kobach – a supporter of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney – Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer and Attorney General Derek Schmidt. They postponed their vote, the paper reports, until Monday, because “they lacked sufficient evidence of President Barack Obama’s birth records to decide whether to remove the Democratic nominee from the November ballot in Kansas.”
Obama, who said his “Kansas roots run deep,” has family history in the state. His mother, Stanley Ann Dunham, and maternal grandparents, Stanley and Madelyn Dunham, were all Kansans.
UPDATE, Friday, Sept. 14, 2012: Joe Montgomery, the Kansas birther who was pushing to have President Obama removed from the ballot over citizenship concerns, has dropped his complaint. Talking Points Memo has the details, including an email from Montgomery citing harassment and concern for his family’s safety as the reasons for his change of heart:
There has been a great deal of animosity and intimidation directed not only at me, but at people around me, who are both personal and professional associations, Montgomery wrote. I’m don’t wish to burden anyone with more of this negative reaction, so please immediatley [sic] withdraw any action on this objection.
