Open and free elections are a tenet of democracy. Participation in elections should be encouraged and celebrated. It’s too bad the state’s top elections official — Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach — has never felt that way.

The good news is Kobach’s hardline, proof-of-citizenship requirement for new voter registration isn’t faring well in state and federal courts. The bad news? Kobach’s office appears to be working as hard as possible to dismiss thousands of voter applications as possible before the courts can reverse Kobach’s approach. That’s a shame.

The League of Women Voters said this week that Kobach’s office discarded some 6,570 voter registration applications between March and August because the applicants did not provide proof of citizenship within 90 days of applying. Kobach’s office did not comment on the League of Women Voters’ assessment, which was developed by comparing the lists of voter applications in suspension as of March with a similar list in August.

The purges occurred despite the fact that U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson in May ordered Kobach’s office to register for federal elections people who tried to register at motor vehicle offices without providing proper proof of citizenship.

Since Robinson’s ruling was limited to those who registered to vote at a driver’s license office, the League of Women Voters speculated that those whose applications were discarded from March to May belonged to people who had tried to register to vote at places other than the driver’s license office.

Marge Ahrens, president of the League’s Kansas chapter, noted that tossing out 6,570 voter applications is equivalent to denying a small Kansas town the opportunity to vote.

On Wednesday, the American Civil Liberties Union, representing three Kansas residents whose voter registration applications were suspended by Kobach for lack of proof of citizenship, argued on behalf of its clients that their votes should count in all races, not just federal races as Robinson ordered. Shawnee County District Judge Larry Hendricks already ruled that all votes be counted in the August primary. Wednesday’s hearing was to decide whether to extend that ruling to the November elections — and Hendricks did just that.

Court filings show that as of Sept. 1, there were 18,611 people who registered at motor vehicle offices without proof of citizenship. The state has said that as many as 50,000 people could be in that category by the November election.

In such an environment, it’s disappointing that Kobach’s office chose to discard more than 6,500 voter registration applications for people who might otherwise have been deemed eligible to vote.