Twice-elected Republican Mayor Joe Ceballos upset after learning that Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach charged him with three counts of voting without being qualified and three counts of election perjury, discovering that the loyal GOP voter had been casting ballots illegally since 1991.
Ceballos, who faces up to 68 months in prison and $200,000 in fines, reportedly never knew that being a green card holder from Mexico disqualified him from participating in American democracy, despite participating in it enthusiastically for over three decades.
The mayor, who won reelection with 83% of the vote in the deeply Republican town, told reporters he voted for Donald Trump and Kris Kobach in multiple elections. "I'm pretty sure I voted for them because I always voted for all the Republicans," Ceballos explained, noting he never bothered looking at candidate names beyond checking for the letter "R."
The Department of Homeland Security has threatened to deport Ceballos to Mexico, where he hasn't lived since age four. Friends in Coldwater rallied behind their beloved mayor, with one rancher noting that if deportation occurs, "Kobach will have trouble showing up here, especially if he asks to stay with us for a while."
The irony was apparently lost on Ceballos's supporters, who overwhelmingly voted for the very politicians who championed strict immigration enforcement and voter fraud prosecutions. More than 83% of Comanche County voters picked Trump for president, while more than 78% chose Kobach for attorney general in 2022.
Kobach, who has waged a campaign for years claiming significant voter fraud, told reporters at a news conference that noncitizen voting "effectively cancels out a U.S. citizen's vote," seemingly unaware that most of those canceled votes were also for Republicans.
