Amid renewed Postal Service worries, Kansas lawmakers move to narrow mail voting window

Lawmakers have approved a measure to close the three-day, post-election window for mail ballots to arrive, coming as resident and state officials alike have renewed their concerns about the reliability of the U.S. Postal Service.

Senate Bill 209, which would end the three-day post election window for mail ballots to be received in the county elections office, was passed with support that would fall well short of what is needed to overcome a potential veto from Gov. Laura Kelly.

Currently, mail ballots are counted if they are received by local election officials by 5 p.m. on the Friday following the election, provided it is postmarked by Election Day. Senate Bill 209 would end the so-called "three-day grace period" and require ballots be returned by 7 p.m. on Election Day.

Legislators in both chambers had previously passed bills to end the three-day grace period over the objections of legislators from rural areas hard hit by mail delays in recent years. This has led to worries that eliminating the grace period will mean that legitimately cast ballots won't be counted, despite the efforts of the voter.

"I want everyone to have the right to vote," Sen. Oletha Faust-Goudeau, D-Wichita, said during negotiations between lawmakers on election bills.

Three-day grace period removal comes as USPS struggles in Kansas

In Kansas, mail must frequently be routed to New Mexico, Colorado or Missouri to be processed before returning to the state, even if it is being delivered a few miles down the road.

Mail struggles across the state have become increasingly acute in recent weeks, with a bipartisan pairing of Kansas' Congressional delegation in U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran and U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids sending a letter to Postmaster General Louis DeJoy demanding answers.

“We write in response to numerous reports of significant mail delays impacting Kansans across the state,” Moran and Davids wrote. “In recent months, our offices have received a growing number of messages from Kansans concerned about missing mail, delayed postal delivery and extended periods with no delivery service at all.”

But proponents have argued that most states do not have a post-election window for ballots to arrive and that the appearance of late-arriving votes swaying an election has fueled mistrust in the electoral process, even though there has been no evidence of fraud in Kansas elections.

More: Kansas lawmakers advance bills to restrict ballot drop boxes, mail voting amid GOP split

"People wonder what is going on," Sen. Mike Thompson, R-Shawnee, chair of the Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee, said during floor debate on a similar measure last month. "We saw that in Georgia. It just lends credence to the whole process. We draw the line and say if you get it in by that point in time — we give people plenty of time."

Results reported by state and local election officials on election night are unofficial and subject to change as counties adjudicate provisional ballots at the county canvass, which usually takes place several days after an election.

Lawmakers adjourned without considering a more sweeping proposal to ban drop boxes in Kansas, a proposal that divided even Republicans.

Lawmakers pass election changes sought by Secretary of State Scott Schwab

Lawmakers, meanwhile, approved a separate measure, Senate Bill 221, advocated by Republican Secretary of State Scott Schwab's office, containing nearly 100 fixes to state election law, most of which are minor or technical in nature.

The bill does include a change to the state’s recount law following a chaotic longshot effort to recount a proposed abortion amendment to the Kansas Constitution last year.

And it would lower the population threshold required for a county to have an appointed election commissioner, rather than an elected county clerk. That move could see Schwab's office appoint the top elections official in Douglas County sooner than anticipated.

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But the proposal ran into a buzzsaw of opposition in the Kansas Senate from Mike Brown, chair of the Kansas Republican Party, and Johnson County Sheriff Calvin Hayden, with both men serving as frequent promoters of election conspiracy theories.

“There has long been a need for comprehensive election law reform and I have been an ardent supporter of updating and clarifying Kansas statute to ensure that Kansans can be confident in the security and accuracy of their elections,” Brown told the Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee. “Unfortunately, (the bill) does not achieve this goal.”

Rep. Pat Proctor, R-Leavenworth, said he was hoping the bill would prove relatively non-controversial. Only six members, all Republicans, voted against the measure in the Legislature.

"We wanted it to be just a basic cleanup bill," Proctor told reporters late last month.

This article originally appeared on Topeka Capital-Journal: As USPS frustrates, Kansas rolls back advanced mail voting window