Kansas

Kansas House, Senate pass bills on ballot boxes, three-day grace period for advance ballots | Allison Kite and Rachel Mipro/Kansas Reflector

Election legislation meant to shore up public trust and transparency passed out of the Kansas House and Senate Thursday, despite concerns that the bills would have a chilling effect on voters. House and Senate lawmakers passed bills ending the three-day grace period for advance ballot collection 77-45, following Wednesday’s debate on the ethics of limiting the window. The vote marks a shift from 2017, when the House voted to create the three-day grace period for ballots with 123 voting in favor of the legislation. Senators voted 23-17 Thursday to do the same. Republican proponents of the bill have said the measure will restore state residents’ trust in the electoral process, though some of the bill’s critics have said proponents are the ones undermining the electoral system in the first place. Rep. Stephanie Sawyer Clayton, an Overland Park Democrat, said the current system should be kept. “We believe that the best way to maintain trust in our election systems is by working under the current constructs as opposed to undermining democracy itself through inflammatory rhetoric,” Sawyer Clayton said. Under the House bill, all advance ballots need to be returned by 7 p.m. on Election Day, eliminating the window currently in place. The restriction would apply to advance voting ballots received by mail, in the office of the county election officer, the satellite election office, any polling place or a county-maintained election drop box.

Full Article: Kansas House, Senate pass bills on ballot boxes, three-day grace period for advance ballots – Kansas Reflector

Kansas: Will election conspiracy theories cause permanent damage to democracy? | Katie Bernard/The Kansas City Star

In early September, Johnson County Sheriff Calvin Hayden spoke with a group of Johnson County conservatives known as the “Liberty People” about his efforts to investigate voter fraud. It was a free-wheeling discussion that included calls for the elimination of all voting machines, unfounded insinuations that undocumented immigrants are voting, and promises that the sheriff was closing in on one of the biggest investigations of his career — despite no evidence of widespread fraud in Kansas’ most populous county. An hour in, an older woman piped up with an apparent call for action. “Now that I’m older, I’m not afraid to go to jail,” she said to Johnson County’s top law enforcement officer. Hayden chuckled and reminded her he’s bound by the constitution. “We are not,” the woman responded. The episode, posted to right-wing video sharing site Rumble, highlighted a phenomenon that has grown over the past two years in Kansas and the country as a whole. A growing collection of citizens no longer trust the outcomes of elections and promote claims of massive fraud without any basis or proof. Though exaggerated claims of voter fraud are not new to the Sunflower State, former President Donald Trump’s continued refusal to accept his 2020 defeat helped set a fire in Kansas that continues to spread ahead of the Nov. 8 midterm election.

Source: Does election denialism threaten democracy in Kansas? | The Kansas City Star

Kansas election conspiracy theorists seek 2020 redo, ban on electronic voting machines in 2022 | Ti Carpenter/Kansas Reflector

The Kansas secretary of state said plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit alleging election fraud in 2020 and 2022 were manipulated by conspiracy fearmongers dedicated to undermining public confidence in the security and accuracy of voting in Kansas. Six individuals filed suit against Secretary of State Scott Schwab, Attorney General Derek Schmidt, Gov. Laura Kelly and Bryan Caskey, Schwab’s director of elections, in a bid for a U.S. District Court injunction forbidding use of electronic voting machines, except for people with a disability, in the Nov. 8 general election. If granted, the state would be forced to proceed with an all-paper voting process statewide coupled with hand counting of ballots. The 77-page petition purports to offer evidence of misconduct in the November 2020 general election in Kansas that produced a victory for President Donald Trump as well as in the August 2022 primary election in which Kansas voters rejected a proposed abortion amendment to the Kansas Constitution. Plaintiffs demanded the federal court require Kelly to void 2020 election results to lay the foundation of a special election to correct that flawed exercise in democracy. Signers of the lawsuit also want the court to instruct Schmidt to open a criminal investigation of Schwab.

Full Article: Kansas election conspiracy theorists seek 2020 redo, ban on electronic voting machines in 2022 – Kansas Reflector

Kansas: “We’ve got to find soebody”: Johnson County Sheriff appears to lack probable cause in election inquiry | Jonathan Shorman/The Kansas City Star

Johnson County Sheriff Calvin Hayden, who has spent months promoting a criminal investigation into elections, told a gathering of residents last week that “we’ve got to find somebody” who knows election rigging is happening. But the Republican sheriff appeared to acknowledge he doesn’t have probable cause, the legal standard required to seek a search or arrest warrant, after the investigation helped foster baseless suspicions of voter fraud. He also said he launched the inquiry to force the preservation of 2020 election records. The comments came during a nearly two-hour meeting inside a Johnson County Sheriff’s Office facility. Video of the meeting, which took place Aug. 30, was posted on Friday on Rumble, a video sharing platform popular among the right-wing politicians and supporters. Hayden’s remarks offer additional insight into an investigation that hasn’t led to any charges or arrests but has helped build his profile among election deniers. At the meeting, Hayden appeared to lay the groundwork to explain why his amorphous investigation hasn’t progressed. He told the audience that he has “tons of reasonable suspicion” but says he needs probable cause for a search warrant “to swear I know a crime has been committed.” He also alluded to baseless conspiracy theories that allege China stole the 2020 election from former President Donald Trump. Some Trump supporters, including MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, have promoted the baseless idea.

Source: Kansas sheriff: Election investigation started over records | The Kansas City Star

Kansas certifies defeat of anti-abortion amendment, other results | Jonathan Shorman/The Kansas City Star

The Aug. 2 election in Kansas was the highest-turnout primary election in state history, Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab’s Office said Thursday as top officials met to formally certify the results, including the defeat of an amendment to remove abortion rights from the state constitution. The unprecedented turnout in the Aug. 2 primary election was driven by extraordinary voter interest in the amendment, called Value Them Both by supporters, which would have overturned a 2019 Kansas Supreme Court decision that found the state constitution protects abortion access. The Kansas State Board of Canvassers voted unanimously to certify the results of the amendment vote and every other state-level and congressional race at the end of a brief meeting in Topeka. In addition to Schwab, the board includes Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly and Republican state Attorney General Derek Schmidt, who will face each other in the Nov. 8 general election for governor. Kelly and Schmidt shook hands, but otherwise didn’t speak to each other during the meeting as they sat on opposite ends of a table, with Schwab, who chaired the meeting, in the middle.

Source: KS certifies defeat of anti-abortion amendment, other results | The Kansas City Star

Kansas recount confirms landslide win for abortion rights, but highlights risk to democracy | Katie Bernard and Jonathan Shorman/The Kansas City Star

Kansas reaffirmed its landslide vote to uphold abortion rights after election officials on Sunday finished a recount that never had any chance of changing the outcome but was sought by an election denier and anti-abortion activist advancing baseless allegations of fraud. The exercise instead delivered a second victory for opponents of an amendment that would have stripped abortion rights from the state constitution. But the recount of such a lopsided vote, rather than building credibility in the results, risks undermining trust in elections because the process provided fringe, diehard amendment supporters an opportunity to attempt to create an aura of uncertainty surrounding the vote when, in fact, none ever existed. A hand recount in nine counties – including Johnson and Sedgwick, the state’s two largest – cost roughly $120,000 and burned countless hours as election officials scrambled to conclude the arduous process before a Saturday deadline. Kansas voters rejected the amendment, called Value Them Both by supporters, 59% to 41% with a margin of about 165,000 votes. The partial recount ultimately changed the outcome by fewer than 60 votes —an infinitesimal fraction of the overall vote that included ballots from more than 922,000 Kansans.

Source: Kansas abortion vote confirmed with partial amendment recount | The Kansas City Star

Four Kansas counties complete abortion amendment recount | The Kansas City Star

Four of the nine counties ordered to undergo a hand recount of votes in Kansas’ abortion ballot initiative have finished their tallies with minimal changes to the overall vote total. Johnson County had not yet begun counting its ballots Wednesday afternoon. Mark Gietzen, a Wichita anti-abortion activist, and Melissa Leavitt, a Colby election denier, scraped together around $120,000 Monday to force a partial hand recount of the abortion rights affirming vote. They chose four of Kansas’ biggest counties — Johnson, Sedgwick, Douglas and Shawnee. They also chose five smaller counties — Crawford, Harvey, Jefferson, Lyon and Thomas. All but Thomas had a majority of voters reject the amendment. The recount, which began Tuesday and must be finished by Saturday, is virtually guaranteed to fail in changing the outcome of the election. Kansans rejected the amendment 59% to 41%, a gap of more than 165,000 votes.

Full Article: Four Kansas counties complete abortion amendment recount | The Kansas City Star

Kansas to recount abortion vote by hand, despite big margin | John Hanna/Associated Press

Kansas’ elections director says the state will go along with a request for a hand recount of votes from every county after last week’s decisive statewide vote affirming abortion rights, even though there was a 165,000-vote difference and a recount won’t change the result. Melissa Leavitt, of Colby in far western Kansas, requested the recount and declined to comment to reporters Friday evening, citing work obligations. But she said on an online site raising funds for a recount that she had “seen data” about the election. Her post was not more specific, and there is no evidence of significant problems with the election. Baseless election conspiracies have circulated widely in the U.S., particularly among supporters of former President Donald Trump, who has repeated false claims that he lost the 2020 election through fraud. Kansas law requires Leavitt to post a bond to cover the entire cost of the recount. Bryan Caskey, state elections director for the Kansas secretary of state’s office, said it would be the first recount of the votes on a statewide ballot question in at least 30 years.

Full Article: Kansas to recount abortion vote by hand, despite big margin | AP News

Kansas: Narrow GOP primary election for  treasurer triggers audit | Bill Lukitch/The Kansas City Star

A close Republican primary for Kansas treasurer has triggered a heightened post-election audit in Johnson County, along with every other county across the state, as the two GOP candidates seeking the party’s nomination were separated by a mere 312 votes on Wednesday evening. Unofficial results from the Kansas Secretary of State’s Office showed Rep. Steven Johnson ahead of Sen. Caryn Tyson by less than 1 percentage point as of 6 p.m. Under a new Kansas law enacted during the last session, every county election office in the state must now perform a post-election audit where ballots cast in 10% of each county’s precincts will be recounted by hand. During a press call on Wednesday, Bryan Caskey, the state’s director of elections, said the GOP primary for treasurer was the only one that met the threshold for the increased post-election audit. He said every county would also be performing the additional state-required audit of a statewide, state legislative and county race in addition to the constitutional amendment question regarding the right to have an abortion in Kansas Johnson County Election Commissioner Fred Sherman said Wednesday that his workers were in a bit of a scramble to get everything done in time. Although the voters have all done their part, he said the work was only beginning for the election office. “We just got out of gates with the work we have to do,” Sherman said. Johnson County, the most populated in Kansas, has 610 precincts. By state law the hand recount for the GOP treasurer primary will include 61 precincts. Seven precincts there will be recounted by hand in the other part of the post-election audit.

Full Article: Close GOP primary election for KS treasurer triggers audit | The Kansas City Star

Kansas appeals court says secretary of state violated open records law by altering computer system | Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector

Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab violated state open records law when he ordered a software vendor to disable the ability to produce a public record, the Kansas Court of Appeals ruled on Friday. The ruling is the latest victory for Davis Hammet, a voting rights advocate, in his three-year legal fight with Schwab over access to provisional ballot data under the Kansas Open Records Act. “By turning off the report capability, the secretary denied reasonable public access to that public record and the information within it,” Justice Stephen Hill wrote in the appeals court decision. “That action — choosing to conceal rather than reveal public records — violates KORA.” Each election cycle, Kansans cast tens of thousands of provisional ballots, many of which are discarded. Some of the issues can be corrected. A voter may have neglected to update their registration after moving, or an election official may question the validity of a signature on a mail-in ballot. Hammet, the president of Loud Light, which works to educate and engage young adults and underrepresented communities on elections in Kansas, has filed a series of requests for provisional ballot reports under the Kansas Open Records Act. The goal is to help voters have their ballots can be counted, and to research the issue to better advise public officials about policies that impact voters.

Full Article: Kansas appeals court says secretary of state violated open records law by altering computer system – Kansas Reflector

Kansas Secretary of State weary of fact-averse out-of-staters who insult Kansas election system | Tim Carpenter/Kansas Reflector

Secretary of State Scott Schwab believes election security requires vigilance due to evolution of cyber threats, but the voice of Kansas’ top election official revealed a touch of exasperation when conversation pivoted to uninformed people dedicated to shaking public confidence in voting systems. Schwab said Kansas had conducted 300 post-election audits without uncovering a single failure. Still, he said, people were pushing theories of voter misconduct that fell short when it came to leaping from suspicion to fact. “Folks from out of state have come in and insulted the Kansas election system,” Schwab said on the Kansas Reflector podcast. “And, they haven’t read our laws. They’ve never been here on Election Day. They’d never watched the tabulation process. They’ve never been a poll worker.” … The Kansas Legislature adopted a collection of new election policies during the 2022 session, and Schwab said he had no objection to the Legislature’s efforts to make certain every legal vote was counted. In the background, however, was a national movement stoked by election skeptics who declared — without evidence — the United States was awash in fraud.

Full Article: Secretary of state weary of fact-averse out-of-staters who insult Kansas election system – Kansas Reflector

Kansas: Unbothered by cost concerns, state senators approve ballot watermark bill | Noah Taborda/Kansas Reflector

The Senate on Tuesday approved a senator’s efforts to ensure all voting systems in Kansas use a paper ballot with a distinctive watermark. Senate Bill 389, introduced by Sen. Richard Hildebrand, R-Galena, also requires a hand audit of these ballots after the election. Currently, Kansas requires election clerks to physically stamp each ballot, but Hildebrand brought the bill to ensure human error does not come into play. In a hearing earlier this month, voting rights advocates raised concerns about the impact of the bill on Kansans with disabilities and the cost for counties to print new ballots. The concerns were echoed by Senate Democrats who said this would not address any real issue. “I am happy to support things that will make our election process more secure. I don’t see any way that this would do that,” said Sen. Marci Francisco, D-Lawrence, during debate over the bill on Monday. “I also know that we are putting all the cost of this on our counties, and it is not something that any of my county residents have asked for.” Hildebrand countered that the cost was with the perceived security. “How much is peace of mind worth? Two cents? I’ll put my two cents in,” Hildebrand said. The state would not incur any costs, although counties would incur costs related to ballot printing and additional wages for election board workers. The Senate gave preliminary approval to the bill on Monday, then passed it 27-11 on Tuesday.

Full Article: Unbothered by cost concerns, Kansas senators approve ballot watermark bill – Kansas Reflector

Kansas House committee explores options for expanding election audits | Tim Carpenter/Kansas Reflector

The Kansas secretary of state’s office and election reform organizations are backing legislation significantly broadening post-election auditing of close political races. A bill under consideration in the Kansas House would require hand counting of 10% of county precincts whenever a federal, statewide or legislative race was decided by a margin of 1% or less of votes on election night. The proposed reform would be applied in even-numbered election years on top of a 2018 requirement auditing occur in 1% of precincts in each county in randomly selected races for county, state and federal offices. In addition, House Bill 2570 would require new process-and-procedure audits of four randomly selected counties in odd-numbered years following a federal election. Clay Barker, deputy assistant secretary of state, said process audits would test voting machine accuracy, review the list of registered voters and in-person early voters, examine reasons for rejecting provisional ballots and look at signature verification materials. “Although we remain confident in our election procedures and audits, we understand the constant need to improve and enhance our processes,” Barker said. He said Secretary of State Scott Schwab’s office worked with the Kansas County Clerks and Election Officials Association to make certain reforms in the bill were attainable.

Full Article: Kansas House committee explores options for expanding election audits – Kansas Reflector

Kansas to pay $1.4M in legal fees for Kris Kobach-backed lawsuit fail | Andrew Bahl/Topeka Capital-Journal

A federal judge approved a deal Wednesday that would see the state pay out over $1.4 million in legal fees to a group of attorneys, including the American Civil Liberties Union, stemming from a prolonged court fight over a controversial voting law favored by former Secretary of State Kris Kobach. U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson signed off on the agreement, which is less than half of the $3.3 million initially requested by the groups. The parties reached an agreement on the matter and presented it to the judge Friday. The costs come from a five-year legal battle over legislation originally passed in 2011 and championed by Kobach, which required an individual present their birth certificate or passport in order to register to vote. The law was struck down by a federal judge in 2018 and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal of the case last year. After its introduction, the requirement was blamed for the suspension of thousands of voter registration applications, as residents didn’t necessarily have the right documents to prove their citizenship.

Full Article: Kansas to pay $1.4M in legal fees for Kris Kobach-backed lawsuit fail

Kansas altered software to hide election records, lawsuit claims | Roxanna Hegeman/Associated Press

A judge is considering whether Kansas’ Republican secretary of state ran afoul of the state’s open records law by ordering the removal of an election database function that generates a statewide report showing which provisional ballots were not counted — a decision civil rights advocates say will have far-reaching implications for government transparency. Shawnee County District Judge Teresa Watson heard arguments last week in a lawsuit filed by voting rights activist Davis Hammet, who is the president of Loud Light, a nonprofit that strives to increase voter turnout. The group helps voters fix any issues that led them to cast provisional ballots so that their votes are counted. Voters are given provisional ballots if they don’t appear to be registered, if they fail to present the required identification or if they are trying to vote at the wrong polling place. “We know there are deficiencies… where they aren’t counting votes that they should be counting and I think on some level there may be a resistance from the secretary of state to provide that data because it means we can highlight these deficiencies,” Hammet said in a phone interview Wednesday. “We can prove how there are votes that should have been counted that are not being counted.” That information can raise public awareness about problems in the elections system, leading to changes in state law. He noted the political outcry over the hundreds of discarded mail-in ballots statewide in the 2018 primary led to legislation a year later that requires election officials to notify voters before their mail-in ballots are thrown out because of problems with signatures.

Full Article: Lawsuit: Kansas altered software to hide election records

Kansas: Judge to decide if top election official can withhold records by altering software | Sherman Smith/The Kansas City Star

An attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas says the state’s open records law might as well not exist if Secretary of State Scott Schwab is allowed to keep public information hidden by reconfiguring software. Attorney Josh Pierson argued Wednesday in Shawnee County District Court for the release of provisional ballot data requested by Davis Hammet, a voter rights advocate who hoped to educate the public about why their ballots weren’t being counted. Hammet won a lawsuit last year over whether details about provisional ballots are a public record, and District Judge Teresa Watson ordered Schwab to turn the information over. The Republican secretary of state, whose agency oversees elections and manages a statewide voter database, instead ordered software engineers to remove the database function that allows the agency to produce the records. The secretary then denied Hammet’s request on the grounds that the records no longer exist. Schwab’s office told Hammet he could still get access to the data, but only if he paid $522 for the database vendor, Election Systems & Software, to retrieve it. Hammet sued again, with support from the ACLU. “This is gamesmanship,” Pierson said. “This was an attempt by the secretary to not have to produce these records that he litigated to not have to produce. He lost. He took matters into his own hands.”

Full Article: Schwab altered software to hide records, voting activist says. | The Kansas City Star

Kansas officials rack up $4M bill in defense of Kris Kobach’s baseless voter fraud law | Sherman Smith/The Kansas City Star

The American Civil Liberties Union and other attorneys want to be repaid more than $4 million for their five-year legal battle with Kansas officials who fought to restrict voter registration under the false pretense of widespread voter fraud. The proposed price tag adds a punctuation mark to the prolonged fight over former Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s signature law, which required new voters to prove their citizenship before registering to vote. Kobach suffered defeat during an embarrassing 2018 trial in federal court, and stiffed taxpayers with the bills when he was twice held in contempt and ordered to go back to law school. Nadine Johnson, executive director of the ACLU of Kansas, said Kobach and others who were determined to defend an unconstitutional law were to blame for the cost. “That’s a choice they made,” Johnson said. “They can’t then come back and say that it’s our fault. They made that choice. You can’t throw up all these roadblocks, and then complain that we’re pushing through the roadblocks.”

Full Article: Kobach’s voter fraud bill costs Kansas millions | The Kansas City Star

Kansas: Election Officials Say They’re On Guard For Hackers Messing With Your 2020 Vote | Stephen Koranda/HPPR

Kansas and federal election officials say they know the 2020 election could come under attack from foreign governments or rogue hackers. They also insist they’re braced to guard against efforts to tamper with voting. In recent elections, Russian hackers tried to breach election systems in more than 20 states and successfully accessed voter registration data in Illinois. The top election official in Kansas assumes  the state’s voting system could be next. “We got a U.S. Senate seat up for election, so that even makes it more of a target,” Republican Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab said. “We’re not going to assume we’re safe, even though we are right now.” Federal law enforcement officials warn that foreign governments will try to undermine the results and influence public sentiment. “Russia, China, Iran and other foreign malicious actors all will seek to interfere in the voting process or influence voter perceptions,” read a joint statement from the FBI and other federal security officials last month.