Ruby red Kansas town shocked and saddened that their mayor faces deportation

A Kansas town chose cruelty. Now it mourns as the mayor faces voter fraud charge and deportation.

Coldwater residents have learned a valuable lesson: Actions have consequences.

Their town’s mayor, Joe Ceballos, has been charged with felony voter fraud by Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach. Ceballos appears to have registered and cast ballots in multiple elections, despite not being a citizen. While you might expect townsfolk to support the prosecution, that’s not the situation at all.

Indeed, a remarkable profile of Ceballos by veteran Kansas journalist Roy Wenzl shows a town shocked that such a good guy — “He’s more American than I am,” a friend said — would be charged. He’s a die-hard Republican in a place full of them.

More than 83% of Comanche County voters picked Donald Trump for president last year. More than 78% appear to have chosen Kobach in 2022.

“If deportation happens, I can tell you that Kobach will have trouble showing up here, especially if he asks to stay with us for a while,” said Dennis Swayze, a rancher who mentored Ceballos.


https://kansasreflector.com/2025/12/01/a-kansas-town-chose-cruelty-now-it-mourns-as-the-mayor-faces-voter-fraud-charge-and-deportation/

When a clerk in Comanche County asked a group of students on a field trip whether they wanted to register to vote, Joe Ceballos raised his hand.

It was an act that would set him on a path to being charged with voter fraud more than three decades later.

Ceballos, the twice-elected mayor of Coldwater, Kansas, says he didn’t understand that as a Mexican immigrant he couldn’t vote in the United States.

An honest mistake, he said. But now he’s found himself in legal trouble that threatens to upend the life he’s spent half a century building.

He now faces felony charges for voter fraud, filed by Kris Kobach, the state attorney general.
“I’m scared,” he said. “I’m not sleeping.”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.kansas.com/news/state/article313143711.html