Republican congressman charged with felonies related to illegal voting
Steve Watkins, a Republican congressman in Kansas, was charged with three felonies and a misdemeanor on Tuesday related to illegally voting in a 2019 local race. The charges came in a state where Republicans have for years made claims of widespread non-citizen voting, with little evidence.
Prosecutors did not provide details of the charges, but said they were related to a 2019 local election. The Topeka Capital-Journal previously reported that Watkins changed his voter registration address to a local UPS store in Topeka in August 2019. He made the change to hide that he was living with his parents at the time, according to the Kansas City Star. Watkins also allegedly lied to a detective about the matter in February, according to court documents obtained by the Star.
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Watkins’ change of address was significant because it placed him in a city council district different than the one he was actually living in. The city council district race Watkins voted in was decided by just 13 votes in November 2019, according to the Capital-Journal.
Watkins, a first-term congressman who represents the eastern part of Kansas, was charged with voting without being qualified, marking/transmitting more than one advance ballot, and obstructing law enforcement. He was also charged with a misdemeanor for failing to notify the state of a change of address.
Watkins’ chief of staff told the Capital-Journal the congressman made a mistake in registering at the UPS address. But Bryan Piligra, a spokesman for Watkins’ re-election campaign also noted the charges were announced just before Watkins was set to participate in a primary debate.
“They couldn’t have been more political if they tried,” he said in a statement. “Just like President Trump, Steve is being politically prosecuted by his opponents who can’t accept the results of the last election.”
Voting without being qualified is punishable with between 15 and 17 months in prison for a first-time offender, according to the Kansas City Star. The other two felonies are punishable by seven to nine months in prison.
The charges come as Donald Trump and other Republicans have stirred fears that the 2020 election will be tainted by significant voter fraud, though several studies have shown that voter fraud is extremely rare and isolated. The most high-profile election fraud case in recent years involved another Republican running for Congress in 2018 who hired an operative who illegally collected mail-in ballots.
Prosecutors across the US have used cases in which people vote while ineligible, even by mistake, to set an example. In Texas, Crystal Mason, an African American woman, didn’t know she was ineligible to vote but was sentenced to five years in prison for attempting to vote in 2016 while on supervised release for a felony conviction (an appeal is ongoing). In North Carolina, prosecutors have also filed criminal charges in recent years against people with felony convictions and non-citizens who voted.
In Kansas, the former secretary of state Kris Kobach, a Republican, built his national profile by suggesting there were a significant number of non-citizens on the state’s voter rolls. His signature achievement was getting the legislature to pass a law requiring voters to provide documents proving their citizenship when they register to vote. But a federal court struck down the law, saying it placed an unlawful burden on voters and noting just 67 non-citizens had either attempted to register or had registered over nearly two decades.
Bob Salera, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, the campaign arm of House Republicans, said the group was aware of the charges and seeking more information.
Daniel Strauss contributed reporting
