Scott Schwab recommends dropping ballots in mail no later than Nov. 1

TOPEKA —  Rep. Pat Proctor worries the U.S. Postal Service’s inability to properly process mail-in ballots that disenfranchised nearly 1,000 Kansas voters in the August primary could be exacerbated by broader interest in the Nov. 5 election.

Proctor, a Leavenworth Republican who chairs the House Elections Committee, said that damage to the voting public in the primary was limited due to the lackluster 17% statewide turnout.

In the upcoming general election, he said, turnout would be substantially higher and ramifications of more USPS’ fumbling could be significantly worse.

“How bad could it be in a general election in a presidential election year that could well have a turnout of over 60%?” Proctor said.

Secretary of State Scott Schwab, who is the state’s chief elections officer, sounded an alarm in September by disclosing results of a survey of Kansas’ 105 county election offices.

The survey showed as many as 1,000 mail-in ballots were received by county election offices within the three-day, post-election grace period established by state law, but were rejected because they lacked a postmark to prove they were mailed prior to close of polls at 7 p.m. Election Day. Without an official postmark, the Kansas ballots couldn’t be counted.

Schwab released a letter he sent to the U.S. postmaster highlighting a “troubling pattern” associated with USPS’ handling of mailed ballots. He said it was “unacceptable that voters, who follow the rules for requesting, voting and returning their mail ballot, are disenfranchised by the USPS.”

Schwab later said he had spoken with Postmaster General Louis DeJoy about operational failures in handling Kansas ballots in August.

“I had a productive conversation with Postmaster General DeJoy,” Schwab said. “He assured me that the USPS will implement new measures to prevent similar issues in the upcoming general election.”

Schwab, a Republican, encouraged Kansans to avoid potential processing obstacles by hand-delivering ballots to a county election office or a ballot drop box prior to the Nov. 5 election.

The secretary of state said an alternative would be for voters to place their ballot in the mail by Nov. 1 or seven days ahead of the Nov. 8 deadline in state law for counties to accept postmarked ballots.

“We are encouraging voters who vote by mail to use a more secure way of returning your ballot to the county election office, if possible,” Schwab said.

The 2017 Kansas Legislature created the three-day window for post-election acceptance of mailed ballots. The motivation was to account for mail delays involving ballots from military personnel, but state law now allows for electronic transfer of those ballots.

Proctor said he was aware of complaints from election clerks in large and small counties about ballots arriving without a USPS postmark.

“We need to eliminate the three-day grace period and … require that mail-in ballots be returned to the election office by Election Night. This will completely eliminate our need to rely on the U.S. Postal Service to do its job and postmark every ballot,” Proctor said.

Aimee Bateman, a Democrat from Leavenworth running for Proctor’s seat in the House, said the central issue was the mail processing capability of the U.S. Postal Service. Addressing flaws in USPS’ approach to ballot handling should make it unnecessary to repeal the three-day grace period, she said.

“That’s the issue that needs to be fixed,” Bateman said. “Getting rid of the three-day grace period will not cure the issue that disenfranchised 1,000 voters in the August primary.”

In the 2024 legislative session, the Republican-led House and Senate approved different bills repealing the grace period.

There was an attempt to send Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly a compromise bill that added three days of advance voting to the calendar to account for loss of three days for ballot delivery. The reform effort was derailed, in part, when the Senate injected into the debate the idea of banning use of machines to count ballots.

Kansas Reflector is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus 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. Follow Kansas Reflector on Facebook and Twitter.

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