Ron E. Thornburgh, (born December 31, 1962,

Burlingame, Kansas Burlingame is a city in Osage County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 971. History Burlingame was originally established as Council City and was an stop on the Santa Fe Trail. The Council City p ...

) was the 29th

Secretary of State of Kansas The secretary of state of Kansas is one of the constitutional officers of the U.S. state of Kansas. The current secretary of state is the former speaker ''pro tempore'' of the Kansas House of Representatives, Scott Schwab, who was sworn in on J ...

. He was elected into his first term in 1994 and was subsequently re-elected in 1998, 2002, and 2006. In July 2007, Thornburgh announced his intentions to explore a run for governor of Kansas in 2010 by appointing a state treasurer, which would allow him to begin raising money. He said, "This is a game in which timing is everything. The time feels right for us right now, in that we've got great support around the state of Kansas". He abandoned his plans for a gubernatorial candidacy after Senator

Sam Brownback Samuel Dale Brownback (born September 12, 1956) is an American attorney, politician, diplomat, and member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party who served as the United States Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Fr ...

indicated he would run for the post in the 2010 election. In order to enter the private sector, Thornburgh resigned as Secretary of State of Kansas on February 15, 2010. Democratic Governor Mark Parkinson, a former Republican, appointed Democrat Chris Biggs to the position for the remainder of Thornburgh's term.

Secretary of State

On Thornburg's initiative, the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck (commonly referred to as IVRC or Crosscheck) database software system designed to compare voter records from other states and identify voters registered in two or more states was launched. Crosscheck was developed in 2005 by Kansas and Secretary Thornburgh, which was in conjunction with Iowa, Missouri, and Nebraska to compare voter registration data and identify any Americans who may have voted twice in recent elections. Crosscheck has been strongly criticized by critics such as reporter

Greg Palast Gregory Allyn Palast (born June 26, 1952) is an author and a freelance journalist who often worked for the BBC and ''The Guardian''. His work frequently focuses on corporate malfeasance but he has also worked with labour unions and consumer adv ...

, Indiana State Conference of the

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) is a civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909 as an interracial endeavor to advance justice for African Americans by a group including W. E. ...

, and the

League of Women Voters The League of Women Voters (LWV or the League) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan political organization in the United States. Founded in 1920, its ongoing major activities include registering voters, providing voter information, and advocating for vot ...

of Indiana, for racially motivated voter caging of non-white registered voters in the United States in NAACP and the League of Women Voters.Civil Rights Groups Challenge Indiana’s Use of Crosscheck: Lawsuit Cites Palast’s Work On Kobach’s Racist Voter Purging Program
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Personal life

Thornburgh graduated from Burlingame High School in 1981 and from

Washburn University Washburn University (WU) is a public university in Topeka, Kansas, United States. It offers undergraduate and graduate programs, as well as professional programs in law and business. Washburn has 550 faculty members, who teach more than 6,100 u ...

in 1985. He identifies himself as a Native American. He and his wife, Annette, have two children.

References

External links

Kansas Secretary of State
{{DEFAULTSORT:Thornburgh, Ron 1962 births Living people Politicians from Topeka, Kansas Washburn University alumni Kansas Republicans Secretaries of State of Kansas People from Burlingame, Kansas