by Tim Carpenter, Kansas Reflector
January 17, 2025
TOPEKA — The top election official in Kansas urged the Legislature to increase the penalty for threatening a poll worker, impose a ban on political parties nominating candidates without an individual’s consent and broaden state authority to compel counties to securely deploy ballot drop boxes.
Secretary of State Scott Schwab, a Republican who has announced interest in running for governor in 2026, recommended the Kansas House consider tweaks rather than wholesale overhaul to state election law.
Schwab encouraged lawmakers to carefully craft bills amending the way people participated in elections to avoid lawsuits challenging constitutionality of reforms. He reminded legislators use of one or two ill-chosen words could swing a case against the state and lead to costly awards of attorney fees to plaintiffs.
Schwab said complaints about the accuracy of Kansas elections and the tabulation of votes was misplaced, because the three elections conducted in Kansas last year went smoothly. There was a poorly attended presidential preference primary in March, which cost nearly $3 million, as well as the regular August primary and November general elections. The primary had the lowest turnout of this century, while the general election had record-high participation.
“Election administration is a complex process governed by a framework of federal and state laws designed to ensure the integrity and security of Kansas elections,” Schwab said.
He said some suggestions for transforming the state’s election process, specifically calls for a return to hand-counting of ballots, were unrealistic. The introduction of computers in collecting and counting votes has improved accuracy, he said.
“What is the square root of 1,165,232? Do you want to use a piece of paper? Or, do you want to use a calculator?” Schwab asked Republicans and Democrats on the House committee Thursday. “Our machines hold people accountable. Your computer makes less mistakes than you do. The reason we incorporate technology is it corrects human error.”
Rep. Pat Proctor, R-Leavenworth and chairman of the House Elections Committee, said constituents had requested a law mandating exclusive use of paper ballots and total reliance on hand counting of votes. Proctor said it would be helpful if the secretary of state released post-election audits of computer-supported voting.
Schwab’s staff introduced a bill that would seek to increase election worker safety by making it a crime to threaten or interfere with election workers performing official duties. He said poll workers in Kansas are volunteers who range from teenagers as young as 16 to elderly retirees, but their security has been threatened by agitated voters who objected to election policies, regulations or laws.
“It is becoming an issue,” the secretary of state said. “It’s not just from one side — the right or the left. People are angry these days. They can take it out on their car or their dogs, but I don’t want you to take it out on an election official.”
He said the current statute viewed threats against an election worker in the same manner as a person complaining to a grocery store clerk.
Rep. Kristey Williams, an Augusta Republican on the House committee, asked Schwab to produce documentation about arrests or complaints filed with law enforcement agencies tied to threats at voting locations. It would be useful to know if the issue was people sharing political insights or posing a real danger, she said.
“Is it just more like national rhetoric? Like at a basketball game when people get, you know, pretty feisty against the referees. It’s a difference,” Williams said.
Schwab also proposed the Legislature grant his office authority to regulate the manner in which ballot drop boxes were deployed by county election administrators. He said the idea would be to let the state make certain drop boxes were firmly secured, located on county property and regularly monitored.
“Right now,” he said, “it’s like ‘Pirates of the Caribbean.’ Counties do what they want. We’d like some authority on that.”
Schwab told legislators that he would welcome legislation to prohibit political parties from nominating candidates who didn’t want to accept that candidacy.
In June, Republican operative Kris Van Meteren, asserting control of the No Labels party, attempted to place candidates on the November ballot. One was the nonconsensual nomination of state Sen. Marci Francisco of Lawrence. She had sought the Democratic Party’s nomination for reelection, but wasn’t informed in advance of the No Labels maneuver.
In the end, Schwab rejected candidate filings made by Van Meteren, in part, because the secretary of state concluded Van Meteren didn’t hold the position of No Label’s party chairman.
In Kansas, the secretary of state’s office provides statewide oversight of voting activities. Election work is handled by 101 elected county clerks and in four counties — Shawnee, Wyandotte, Sedgwick and Johnson — by election commissioners appointed by Schwab.
Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kansas Reflector maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Sherman Smith for questions: info@kansasreflector.com.
