‘Not really tethered to facts.’ KS Legislature gives platform to election misinformation

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The Kansas Legislature spent more than $6,600 last week on a committee that promoted misinformation and false claims of election fraud.

The two-day meeting was the latest in a string of conspiracy-laced hearings in the GOP-controlled Legislature since 2020, when former President Donald Trump falsely claimed the election was stolen from him.

Sen. Mike Thompson, a Shawnee Republican who chaired the committee, handpicked who lawmakers would hear from as they studied elections. He chose a series of activists who lacked expertise on elections and a Florida-based think tank that has pushed for ballot restrictions.

He left out local election administrators.

The cost of the committee includes payment for salary and per diem for all 11 lawmakers, as well as staff pay. The cost does not include any mileage for lawmakers to travel to Topeka.

Davis Hammet, founder of voting rights group Loud Light, said he believed the two days of testimony did more harm to voter confidence than good.

“This doesn’t increase confidence in elections, they just created a platform for increasing doubt in elections because no one was there to counteract all these ridiculous claims,” Hammet said.

But Thompson argued the groups who were left out already have the ear of lawmakers and that concerned Kansans needed a voice. Many of the activists he invited, however, are not based in Kansas.

“These are folks who don’t have ready access to these types of public forums and I thought giving them a voice for this so that we could listen to their concerns and have this kind of discussion was important,” Thompson said.

Individuals presenting repeatedly debunked claims of election fraud and irregularities dominated the second day of testimony. The speakers, representing the Liberty Lions League, largely lacked any professional expertise on election systems. Instead, they were often individuals with backgrounds in computer science who sought to convince lawmakers without evidence that election machines had serious security deficiencies.

This included Mark Cook, a Colorado election denier who allegedly convinced an election official east of Denver to make unauthorized copies of the county’s voting system. The Colorado secretary of state sued the county election official last year. Cook argued that Dominion Voting Systems had rigged the 2020 presidential election. The claims have been repeatedly debunked and resulted in an $800 million payment from Fox News to the company to settle a defamation case.

Lawmakers also heard from Thad Snider, a Johnson County man who filed an unsuccessful lawsuit last year seeking a redo of the 2020 presidential election and criminal prosecution of Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab, a Republican.

Snider argued ballot drop boxes and absentee ballots were prime spots for election fraud. He cited concerns he had about transfer documents, which Schwab and Johnson County Election Commissioner Fred Sherman have said do not actually indicate election fraud.

Another witness, Clint Curtis, a conspiracy theorist who unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2006 and 2008 and has claimed for decades that he was hired to rig the 2000 election in Florida, argued potential election hackers could guess which counties would be audited following an election to avoid getting caught. Kansas, however, chooses which elections to audit through a completely random process after an election is over.

Rep. Pat Proctor, a Leavenworth Republican who chairs the House Elections Committee, said he believed the Kansas Legislature could make changes to improve elections and increase voter confidence.

But he said the committee testimony provided incomplete information.

“It’s very hard to do when we have a contingent that is not really tethered to facts or evidence of any kind because the folks that are trying to make rational, reasonable arguments to fix stuff get painted with that brush,” Proctor said.

Proctor said he didn’t have an issue with the individuals testifying about their concerns about election equipment but that the Legislature also needs to hear from vendors, the League of Women Voters, Loud Light and county election officials.

“I’ve been going to election commissioners and election officers and county clerks and actually seeing how it’s done,” Proctor said. “I know that some of the concerns and issues that are raised here, they play in the area of people’s ignorance.”

“Some people don’t know how the whole system works and a lot of the suspicions and concerns are living in this space where people don’t really know how it works.”

Rick Piepho, the secretary of the Kansas County Clerks and Election Officials Association, said the committee reached out to him about having county clerks testify. However, before Piepho could respond, he said, the Legislature had published an agenda for the committee that did not include the clerks.

At that point, he said, he backed off. He provided the committee with the information it requested but said he didn’t “want to get into a debate on the Friday stuff on all these different conspiracy theories.”

He said pushing back on conspiracy theories is one of the largest challenges for clerks, especially when they are often asked to prove a negative, that fraud doesn’t exist.

“That’s one of our biggest struggles is how to combat some of the myths and disinformation out there,” he said. “When a chair of a committee gives a forum to these people to spout theories I’m not sure that it’s good for anybody.”

Thompson said he planned to ask for permission to hold a third day of election integrity hearings later this year. He said he may consider bringing in some of the voices that weren’t included in the first two days but he argued the views of those who worry about machines shouldn’t be dismissed.

He said testimony from the Kansas Secretary of State’s Office the prior day represented the other side of the issue.

“It’s not about the expertise but I think you look at, for example, the work some of these people have done and they’ve committed huge amounts of time,” Thompson said. “Experts don’t necessarily come with a degree after their name or a company name to back them up.”