The left-wing League of Women Voters is on notice after allegedly trying to pay high school students to register to vote earlier this year in Kansas.
The state lawmaker who first raised concerns about the registration incentives tells The Federalist a local chapter of the LWV couldn’t have been more brazen about the promotion.
‘They May Not Buy Registrations’
On Friday, Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach sent a cease-and-desist letter to the League of Women Voters of Kansas and the LVW chapter in Leavenworth County, demanding the groups “immediately stop offering cash, gift cards, or any other item of value in connection with voter registration or voting…”
The Republican AG also referred the matter to Ryan Kriegshauser, U.S. Attorney for the Kansas District who in his short time in the position has earned a reputation as an aggressive prosecutor of election fraud. Kobach advised the LWV that the state also reserves the right “to bring any appropriate enforcement action following further investigation.”
In a press release, Kobach explained that social media posts from the Leavenworth chapter of the League advertised gift card giveaways to students in exchange for their voter registrations, including a photo of a table sign that read, “Register to vote get a Starbucks gift card.”
Doing so is a federal crime, the attorney general warned in the letter to Marlene Merrill, president of the League of Women Voters of Kansas, based in Topeka. Individuals convicted of knowingly paying a person “either for registration to vote or for voting” face up to $10,000 in fines and up to five years in prison.
It’s illegal in Kansas, too.
“The conduct which the League of Women Voters is alleged to have engaged in appears to violate both federal and state law,” the attorney general wrote.
Source: League of Women Voters Leavenworth County Facebook
Individuals who accept such election bribes can be charged, too, but sources say it’s unlikely the unwitting high school students will face any consequences.
Lest “voter rights” groups believe nominal gift cards a trifling matter in the pursuit of voter registration, Kobach informed Merrill that there is no “de minimus” exception.
“Paying people to register or to vote is illegal, period,” the Republican AG said. “The size of the gift card does not matter. These prohibitions exist to protect the integrity of our elections and public confidence in the results. Groups may encourage registration and help eligible Kansans complete the process. They may not buy registrations.”
The AG also told the League to “reserve all records relating to the activity, including financial records and registration forms collected” and to identify “every instance in Kansas in which the organization distributed cash, gift cards, or other items of value in exchange for voter registration or voting”.
LWV officials did not return The Federalist’s email request seeking comment.
‘What Really Shocked Me’
Kansas House Elections Committee Chairman Pat Proctor first raised red flags about the voter-registration drives held in May 2026 at Lansing High School and Leavenworth High School in the Republican’s district.
As of Sunday, the League’s Facebook page boasted photos from the May events. In one picture, a volunteer smiles behind a registration table. The Starbucks sign, complete with the coffee giant’s logo, is visible on the table in front of her. In separate photos, young people hold what appear to be Starbucks gift cards, apparently post-registration.
Brendan Fischer, a longtime far-left activist who serves as director of strategic investigations at the Campaign Legal Center, agreed that federal law bars payments to individuals in exchange for their registrations or votes, according to the Kansas Reflector.
“Given the breadth of the law, well-intentioned groups seeking to encourage civic participation can accidentally cross a legal line,” Fischer told the publication, which laughingly described the Campaign Legal Center (read more about the left-leaning group at InfluenceWatch) as a “nonpartisan legal organization focused on democracy.” That’s not surprising. The Reflector is owned by the left-wing States Newsroom, a nonprofit network “launched with the backing of the Hopewell Fund, another liberal dark-money group,” according to The Washington Post.
Proctor, who is running for Kansas secretary of state, said the League of Women Voters’ local chapter didn’t just cross the line, “they sprinted across it full speed.”
“The brazenness of it is what really shocked me,” the Republican election integrity warrior said. When Proctor posted his concerns about the event on his Facebook page, League members actually liked and loved the post.
“If they can fragrantly violate the law, then our laws don’t mean anything,” the state representative said.
‘A Partisan Ecosystem’
As the group’s Facebook page reaffirms, the League of Women Voters has long been the pet of well-heeled leftist interests, a front group for all manner of left-wing causes. And it has been a vehemently litigious opponent of election integrity laws.
The League has routinely joined forces with the Marxist ACLU in suing to block states from implementing election integrity laws, including voter ID measures that would block noncitizens from voting in U.S. elections.
“The League of Women Voters of Kansas has long existed in a partisan ecosystem,” Proctor said. “I like to call them the axis of ballot harvesting.”
He added that the conduct of the LWV has called its tax-exempt status into question. Perhaps that question is answered with the Leavenworth County LVW’s promotion.
Source: League of Women Voters Leavenworth County Facebook page
In 2020, an avalanche of private cash paid for “nonpartisan” leftist groups to register left-leaning voters. Under the cover of Covid, election laws — including some instances of incentives registration — dirtied the rigged election year. That private funding barrage was followed by the public sector blitz known as Bidenbucks, with the Biden administration spending untold amounts of taxpayer money on big government voter registration campaigns.
This year, left-wing groups like New Voters are promoting “swag” offerings to those who sign up and run voter registration drives. New Voters promises those who compete their voter registration drives on high school campuses “will be able to choose a prize including but not limited to” Amazon gift cards, name brand water bottles and Lululemon belt bags.
The group bills itself as a “student-led 501(c)3 nonprofit that empowers high school student leaders across the country to run effective voter registration and civic engagement programs in their school.” To what ultimate end? The answer would appear to be in the company it keeps.
New Voters founder is Jahnavi Rao, former head of Youth Engagement and Millennial Voter Participation for the Democratic National Committee, where she “[w]orked with College Democrats of America Chapters to implement voter registration events at college graduations,” according to a White House Domestic Policy Council report on the left-wing ideological takeover of the Smithsonian’s Institution’s National Museum of American History. Her LinkedIn page notes the same. Rao then served as Deputy Campaign Manager for a Democratic candidate in Pennsylvania, then as an intern in the Biden White House where she “discuss[ed] youth priorities and collaboration opportunities with the Second Gentleman and various cabinet officials.”
Rao has been at it for the past decade, boasting that New Voters has engaged tens of thousands of high school students through over 1,000 drives in high schools in 42 states” — Including Kansas.
New Voters’ comrades include groups like Generation Citizen and the Civics Center, all engaged in the RISE Vote 2026 campaign and salivating over the tens of millions of Gen Zers eligible to vote in the midterms.
These are the “nonpartisan” organizations working to harvest young votes for Democrats and leftist causes. And they’re offering some “swag” to accomplish their mission.
“They’re all part of the ecosystem of groups, the Soros-funded monsters trying to subvert the integrity of our elections,” Proctor, the Kansas state representative said.
Enforcing Election Law Violations
There have been some high-profile cases of voter registration and other election fraud crimes over the past few weeks.
Earlier this month, law enforcement officials arrested James Brass, 47, also known as “Lord,” of Victorville, California, on a federal grand jury indictment charging him and two other defendants with paying people on Skid Row in downtown Los Angeles to sign petitions using stolen identities of registered voters to qualify initiatives on ballots in California elections. Also charged in the two-count indictment, according to the Department of Justice, were two petition circulators who worked for Brass: Courtney Price, 49, of Jacksonville, Florida, and Jateisha Herron, 33, of Boron, California.
Elsewhere, a federal grand jury’s indictment charged Bridget Johnson, 53, of Cotton Valley, La. with fraudulent voter registration and voting by an illegal alien, and Michael Wedderburn, 52, of Jamaica, with voting as an illegal alien.
Also this month, the DOJ announced charges against 16 people in connection with illegal voting, illegal voter registration, and related election-fraud schemes from Idaho to New Jersey.
And the U.S. Attorney’s office for the Kansas District has been busy. On Sept. 10, a federal grand jury in Wichita “returned an indictment charging a Peruvian national with multiple criminal offenses arising from allegedly voting in a federal election despite not being a United States citizen.”
“With another election looming, the Department’s effort serves as a stark reminder to individuals who are not legally authorized to vote not to engage in this conduct,” Kriegshauser said. “Should individuals be determined by a court of law to have illegally claimed U.S. citizenship and voted or attempted to vote in federal elections, they will face serious criminal consequences.”
