© Dreamstime/Dreamstime/TNSKansas lawmakers gave initial approval to bills that would strip the executive and judicial branches of some authority over elections and make it more difficult to cast a ballot by mail.
TOPEKA, Kan. - Kansas lawmakers, following a trend in Republican-controlled statehouses nationwide, gave initial approval Wednesday to bills that would strip the executive and judicial branches of some authority over elections and make it more difficult to cast a ballot by mail.
One of the measures would bar the Governor and courts from altering election laws. The other limits who is permitted to return a mail-in ballot on behalf of another person and makes it a felony for an individual to return more than five mail-in ballots.
The changes were approved on a 28-12 vote, despite reports from Secretary of State Scott Schwab in January that Kansas had a "free and fair" election last year.
The Senate's action is part of an impassioned national debate about voting rights.
Republican-controlled states across the country are considering changes to their election laws following largely baseless claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election. In Washington, the slender Democratic majority in the U.S. House passed legislation in early March to expand mail-in voting nationwide and establish same-day registration for federal elections.
It faces an uncertain path in the U.S. Senate, where it's unlikely to find enough GOP support to win the 60 votes required for passage. The Kansas House and Senate each passed separate resolutions this month urging Congress to reject the federal bill.
No evidence of widespread ballot harvesting or other voter fraud or election security issues have been uncovered in Kansas. But supporters of the legislation said that is not the point.
"The issue is not what did happen, the issue is what could happen," said Sen. Larry Alley, a Winfield Republican. "I think that our favor is that we have fair, safe and secure elections."
Opponents, including the NAACP, ACLU and Disability Rights Center of Kansas , have said the mail ballot measures constitute voter suppression and will make voting more difficult for many Kansans.
Sen. Mary Ware said the legislation took away voting rights to resolve issues that didn't exist.
"I really do not see a problem except perception. And perception is driven by a problem of lack of information," Ware, a Wichita Democrat, said regarding the policy preventing Kansans from returning more than five advance ballots for other voters.
The policy, she said, simply makes felons out of good neighbors.
"What we're talking about here is voter suppression, nothing less," Ware said.
Some Republicans urged lawmakers to reconsider the prohibition on returning more than five advanced ballots during conference committee out of concern that it would make it too difficult for elderly and disabled Kansans to vote.
A reaction to 2020
House Bill 2332 prohibits the executive and judicial branches of government from creating election laws. It also limits the Secretary of State's authority over elections by banning actions such as entering into consent decrees with a court without legislative approval.
The measures are in direct response to two pivotal decisions in the 2020 elections.
One was the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's decision to extend the due date for mail ballots. The other was a consent decree entered into by the Georgia secretary of state to establish standards for checking signatures on ballots. A lawsuit alleged that ballots of Black voters were being disproportionately disqualified.
"During the 2020 election cycle we saw a few issues with the other branches of government altering election laws and, in my opinion, doing so illegally," Rep. Blake Carpenter, a Derby Republican, said in written testimony on the policy. He said he wanted to prevent such issues in Kansas.
The bill also creates disclosure requirements for organizations distributing information about mail-in voting and mandates the Secretary of State to maintain residential addresses in addition to mail addresses of voters. It also creates new election tampering crimes.
House Bill 2183 focuses largely on mail-in voting. It limits who is permitted to return a mail-in ballot for another person and makes it a felony for one person to return more than five mail-in ballots. The measure also requires the signature on a mail ballot to match the signature election officials have on file, creating a potential for votes to be discarded, and bans the secretary of state from extending mail-in vote deadlines.
The bill also makes it illegal to backdate a postmark on a ballot and bars election offices from accepting money from any entity other than the state for administering elections.
Alley said Wednesday he may send an additional bill to the Senate next week that would require mail-in ballots to arrive at the polling place by 7 p.m. on election day, removing the three-day grace period current law allows for ballots postmarked by election day.
Earlier versions of this story overstated the potential impact of the legislation. It would strip the executive and judicial branches of some authority over elections. It would also bar the governor and courts from altering election laws.