The Kansas House on Thursday agreed to abolish all-mail ballot elections with proponents saying they’re expensive and don’t draw large voter turnout.
The House voted 72-50 to pass a bill repealing the Mail Ballot Election Act, which was sponsored by 20 Republicans, including the chair of the House elections committee.
The vote was 12 short of the number needed to override a veto. Three House members – two Republicans and one Democrat – were absent and didn’t vote.
The bill would only abolish elections held by mail ballot. It does not affect advance voting by mail. The bill would take effect July 1 when it’s published in the statute book.
“This is really about fiscal responsibility and increasing voter participation in these elections,” said Republican state Rep. Pat Proctor, the House elections chair.
There have been 76 mail-ballot elections across the state from Jan. 28, 2016, through Feb. 24, 2026, according to the Kansas secretary of state’s office.
Mail-ballot elections are allowed for 14 different government types, including counties, cities, townships, community colleges, schools, hospital districts, fire districts and the Johnson County Parks and Recreation District district.
The taxing district decides whether to hold an all-mail ballot election or an in-person election. The district pays the county for the cost of the election.
Return postage is included for all-mail ballot elections. Every active registered voter in the district is mailed a ballot with the issue question.
State officials say that local election officers are required to match signatures on the returned mail ballots with the signatures on file in the election office.
There are three mail-ballot elections set for Johnson County on March 3, including a sales tax question in Edgerton, a $99 million bond issue for the De Soto school district and a $389 million bond issue for the Olathe school district.
The bill was opposed by the city of Overland Park, a coalition of 33 rural Kansas counties and a coalition of municipalities from southwest Kansas that included Dodge City, Garden City and Liberal.
Supporters of mail ballot elections say they make it easier to vote and they increase turnout for elections.
They said that mail ballot elections have historically been conducted for narrow local elections such as bond issues, annexations and tax questions that are held outside the regular election cycle.
They said that requiring in-person elections in every case increases expenses, strains election staffs and can delay time-sensitive projects.
The Southwest Kansas Coalition, which includes Dodge City, Garden City and Liberal, said the bill imposes a “one-size-fits-all” standard on all cities regardless of size and resources.
“What may be feasible in larger jurisdictions is often far more challenging for smaller municipalities with limited staff and budgets,” the coalition said.
“Local officials are best positioned to determine how elections can be conducted securely, efficiently, and in a manner that best serves their residents,” the group said.
Rick Piepho, the Harvey County clerk and chairman of the Elections Committee of the Kansas County Clerks and Election Officials Association, testified against the bill.
Piepho said voter turnout is often higher for special-question elections conducted by all-mail ballot, commonly in the range of 50% to 60%, compared to approximately 20% to 30% for traditional polling-place elections.
“Mail ballot elections provide an accessible and convenient voting method for voters, particularly in rural areas, small districts, or elections with limited public interest where operating full polling places is difficult to justify,” Piepho said in written testimony.
“Kansas has decades of experience administering mail ballot elections with established statutory safeguards, requirements, and procedures. Removing the statutory framework does not enhance security; it simply eliminates a controlled and familiar process.”
In three mail-ballot elections in Johnson County last year, for instance, turnout ranged from about 20% to about 26% with the cost ranging from about $39,000 to about $81,800.
A sales tax election in Lenexa cost about $81,800 with a turnout of about 24%. The question was approved with about 79% of the vote.
A $100 million bond issue in the Gardner-Edgerton District cost about $34,000 and had a turnout of about 20%. It was approved with about 59% of the vote.
A $60 million bond issue in the Spring Hill District cost about $39,100 and had a turnout of about 26%. It won with about 64% of the vote.
A sales tax election in Overland Park in 2023 cost about $256,000 and had a turnout of about 25%. It was passed with about 53% of the vote.
Go back as far as 2019 and there was a bond issue in the city of Shawnee for a new community center.
No cost was immediately available Thursday, but the turnout was about 47% and the measure was defeated with about 72% of the vote.
In Douglas County, elections officials said there was a special county mail-ballot election for a jail expansion in May 2018 that was defeated with about 53% of the vote.
Turnout was about 42%, and the cost for the election was about $125,000.
The county said it if were to run a countywide in-person election, board workers alone would be about $90,000.
There was a mail-ballot election in March 2022 for the Eudora Library. Turnout was about 37% and the cost was billed at $8,137. The question was defeated with 53% of the vote.
By comparison, there was a special in-person election in Eudora in May 2024. The turnout was about 25% and the cost was billed at $12,262.
Republican state Rep. Allen Reavis of Atchison was among the supporters of the bill and carried the legislation on the House floor.
Reavis said the post office can’t be reliably counted on to get the ballots in on time and the voter lists can’t be trusted.
He said the current system can lead to problems if ballots are mailed to an address where the registered voter no longer lives and no one is required to show identification.
He questioned whether there were sufficient measures in place to ensure that registered voters who get a ballot in the mail are the ones casting the ballot.
“They’re supposed to be validated and all, but there’s no real verifiable voter ID on these,” Reavis said.
“The feedback I got from a lot of voters in my district was that they were really a horrible way to do an election,” Reavis said.
Reavis said he was surprised by the opposition that turned out to oppose the bill when it was heard in committee.
He suggested he would be open to refining the bill to respond to concerns, but he wasn’t yet sure what that might look like.
Democratic state Rep. Tom Sawyer, who was the Sedgwick County clerk in the mid-1980s, used to distrust mail ballots.
He related how Sedgwick County on four occasions in the 1980s rejected sales tax proposals – until it had a mail-ballot election when it passed.
“I thought they were cheating,” Sawyer said.
“How could it always fail and then all of sudden you switch how you do it and it passed?” Sawyer recalled.
Sawyer filed a lawsuit unsuccessfully challenging the constitutionality of a mail-ballot elections. The case went to the state Supreme Court, which ruled in 1986 that he didn’t have standing.
After about 40 years, Sawyer has become more accustomed to mail-ballot elections and on Thursday he voted to keep the current system.
“Over the years, there’s been lots of them in Kansas,” Sawyer said of mail-ballot elections. “I don’t think there’s anything sinister about it. It’s an OK way to do elections.”
