To the editor:

Most Americans and most Kansas believe in free voting rights for qualified voters. That right is being obstructed all across the country by scary new laws that:

l make voting much harder for certain classes of voters;

l allow politicians to elect their own voters by gerrymandering; and

l let top officials overturn majorities of the remaining voters when they don’t like the outcome.

This amounts to a concerted attack on democracy as such.

The House has passed legislation to preserve democracy. These laws would include voter ID and other conservative protections against fraud, as well as protections against voter suppression. These reforms are highly popular in America and Kansas, both in general and also in their particular details.

However, the GOP has filibustered to prevent the Senate from even discussing this topic. Kansas Sens. Jerry Moran and Roger Marshall support the filibuster. Why?

Here’s a hint: Marshall has signed on to Donald Trump’s Big Lie, namely that Joe Biden’s 2020 election was stolen. All of Trump’s arguments evaporated in court. Nevertheless, Trump organized an insurrection that attacked Congress on Jan. 6, just when it was voting on Trump’s Big Lie. Amazingly, even after Marshall’s life was endangered by insurrectionists he voted in support of the Big Lie. Voter suppression is the Big Lie applied at the state level.

But Moran had not supported the Big Lie. His new support for Big Lie politics is presumably an effort to win Trumpist votes in the 2022 primary. As Trump would say, how sad.

David Burress,

Lawrence