Kobach Orders Kansas Group to Stop Offering Voters Gift Cards as Trump Calls It a Crime

Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach has ordered a voter outreach group to stop offering incentives tied to voting after a Kansas voter reported being offered a $5 gift card.

Kobach sent the cease-and-desist letter to Bluestem Kansas on Saturday, his office said in a news release. The canvasser who offered the gift card identified himself as working with the group.

“I never thought that a group in Kansas would be so brazen as to go door-to-door three days before a general election offering voters monetary incentives,” Kobach said. “This sounds like Chicago in the 1950s, not Kansas in the 2020s.”

He vowed that anyone who breaks election laws “will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”

Under Kansas law, election bribery includes giving, offering or agreeing to give a benefit in exchange for voting, a severity level 7 nonperson felony.

Federal law separately bars paying or offering to pay anyone to vote in elections with federal candidates.

The letter also orders Bluestem to preserve all records of its canvassing, including emails, text messages, scripts, training materials, payment records and communications with vendors and canvassers.

Trump Weighs In

President Donald Trump amplified the case Sunday on social media.

“I have just been informed by the Great Attorney General of Kansas, Kris Kobach, that a Radical Left PAC operative was caught on camera going door to door in Wichita offering gift cards to people for votes,” he {a(TS,’wrote on Truth Social’)}.

“We have photographic evidence. This is a Criminal Offense!” Trump added.

Kobach’s public announcement describes a single reported offer and does not say where it happened or whether the voter was asked to back any candidate, Salina311 reported. His office has not publicly detailed the photos Trump described.

No charges have been announced, and a cease-and-desist letter is not a court finding that the law was broken.

Bluestem Kansas is the public name of the Bluestem Foundation for Economic Freedom, a Topeka-based 501(c)(4) nonprofit. Its website says its mission includes “providing the tools and information to take action and vote.”

The group has not publicly responded. KCTV5 said it reached out to Bluestem for comment and had not heard back.

Kansas law does let a business or organization give an item worth less than $3 to anyone who says they voted, regardless of how they voted. The reported offer was worth more than that.

Kobach joined Trump on stage at a Sunday night rally in Salina, where Trump said Kobach had told him about the Wichita canvasser.

Kobach, who faces Democrat Chris Mann on Tuesday, told the crowd that Trump “gets that voter fraud is real.”

The attorney general’s office is asking any Kansan who was offered a gift card, cash or another incentive by Bluestem or its canvassers to call 785-296-2215 with details, photos or written materials.

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