Dodge City

Kansas Citians that don't have a way to get to the polls on Election Day can look to public transportation and ride-sharing companies for free or discounted rides to the polls.

Offering free and discounted transportation to polls has become one effort of many to increase voter turnout on Election Day.

Dodged an order

A federal judge shot down a plea from the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas to force the opening of a second polling place in Dodge City.

There’s just too little time, the judge ruled, to open another location, print ballots, split up voters between the two locations, and tell those voters about that change without making things worse.

A federal judge has ruled that Ford County, Kansas, does not have to provide a second polling place in Dodge City on Election Day.

In a ruling late Thursday, U.S. District Judge Daniel Crabtree denied a request for a temporary restraining order filed by the American Civil Liberties Union in late October on behalf of a Dodge City resident and a Latino community organization. 

Of Trump, bomb plots and Twinkies

Lawyers for one of the men convicted of a Kansas terror plot are essentially arguing: the president made me do it. And that their client should get less time in prison because President Donald Trump’s rhetoric inspired a plan to set off explosives at an apartment complex in Garden City where Muslim immigrants live.

Prosecutors say, um, no. That Patrick Stein deserves life in prison for his role in the attack.

Vote the heck out of Dodge

The American Civil Liberties Union is seeking a temporary restraining order requiring Ford County officials to increase the number of polling places in Dodge City for next Tuesday’s election to two instead of just one.

Local organizers in Dodge City fought for more, and more accessible, polling places even before their lone, out-of-the-way voting location drew national attention.

On Friday, the American Civil Liberties Union sued County Clerk Debbie Cox.

Money, money, money

People, apparently, still give money to the campaigns of congressional candidates. But the real action these days comes from different directions.

Consider, for instance, Kansas’ 2nd Congressional District. Sure, Democrat Paul Davis pulled in about $1.3 million over the last three months. And that’s more than four times Republican Steve Watkins collected from donors.

Who’s in 1st in the 3rd?

The New York Times’ “live” poll of Kansas 3rd Congressional District shows incumbent Republican Kevin Yoder possibly trailing Democrat and lawyer Sharice Davids by eight points. The sample is relatively small -- fewer than 500 respondents.

Three militia members accused of plotting to bomb a mosque and apartment complex in southwest Kansas go on trial Tuesday in Wichita.

Their alleged plot laid bare tiny pockets of the ugliest, potentially violent, racism in a region that’s seen immigrants drawn to tough meatpacking jobs for decades.

The raw hate exposed in the alleged plan shocked some of the refugees who were targeted, reminding them of violence they fled in Somalia and sparking an exodus from one of the prairie towns.

It also prompted more people to talk with admiration of the workforce that keeps the meatpacking industry, and the region’s economy, alive. They’ve reached out to the would-be targets of domestic terrorism.

“We all give each other a chance here,” says LeVita Rohlman, who directs the Catholic Agency for Migration and Refugee Services in Garden City. “Even when things go wrong. I believe that this community stands united.”

The plot took root near Dodge City, at the easternmost point of a the Kansas meatpacking triangle formed with Liberal and Dodge City. All three Great Plains cities have for generations drawn immigrants for the smelly, dangerous work of transforming cattle into steaks and hamburger. It’s work that few U.S.-born Americans take on.