In Kansas voter ID trial, a clash of two visions for America

There were a few things Jo Carolyn French wanted people to know when she took the witness stand at the US District Court in Kansas City last week – among them, that as an Arkansas teenager she picked 300 pounds of cotton a day and as a senior citizen she likes to drive her Ford Focus rocking out to Rod Stewart with her hair flowing in the wind.

Her folksy humor had both sides chuckling in an otherwise tense trial, in which the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is challenging a Kansas law requiring prospective voters to show proof of citizenship.

But Ms. French stopped joking when it came to the main issue: the need to prove you are a United States citizen to vote in the state. She says she was happy, as a new resident of Kansas who had long ago lost track of her birth certificate, to produce a family Bible, a baptismal certificate, and her high school transcript in order to be able to register to vote.

“I was hurt that no one believed me that I was an American citizen,” said French, a

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