A Senate committee on Monday signed off on a bill barring county election officials from mailing out unsolicited ballot applications to voters.
Supporters said the bill was an attempt to keep local election officials from spending money to send out prepopulated ballot applications they see as unnecessary.
Opponents see it as an attempt to make voting harder while limiting local election officials’ ability to address capacity issues at the polling place.
The bill came in response to the Johnson County election commissioner spending about $130,000 to send out 417,856 advance ballot applications for last year’s general election.
The ballot applications were prepopulated with the voter’s name, address and date of birth.
Johnson County Election Commissioner Fred Sherman mailed the ballot applications in an effort to encourage voters to cast their ballot by mail so that polling locations could accommodate an influx of voters during the 2024 presidential election.
The bill was introduced by Republican state Sen. Mike Thompson, chair of the Federal & State Affairs Committee.
The bill only allows counties to send mail ballot applications if they’re requested by the voter regardless of whether or not they are prepopulated with voter information.
The bill also bans the advance ballot applications from being prepopulated.
Thompson said the county election commissioner’s decision to send out the ballots unsolicited creates confusion with voters and incurs more costs.
He said he didn’t think it was necessary.
“We’re just trying to rein in that situation,” he said in a recent interview.
Thompson said voters could still request an application for an advance ballot. He also said other groups are not prohibited from sending out advance ballot applications.
Democratic state Sen. Cindy Holscher of Overland Park objected to the bill, saying that local election officials need to have the latitude to make adjustments if polling locations are closed under extenuating circumstances.
“What if there’s a fire and some of those locations burn down, we have totally taken away the ability of the local officials to respond to that and likely would have a capacity issue.”
In a recent interview, Sherman said he was trying to get voters accustomed to voting by mail in an effort to keep them from overrunning polling locations this year.
He said the Johnson County polling sites were running near capacity for the August 2022 primary when the constitutional amendment on abortion was on the ballot.
He said there were more than 126,000 people who voted in-person that day over 12 hours, which was near capacity.
He feared those numbers would swell to 150,000 in-person voters for this fall’s general election when the presidential race will be on the ballot.
“I have grave concerns about doing 150,000 on Election Day,” Sherman said.
“If I have to vote 150,000 people on Election Day, I have concerns about there being huge, long lines,” he said. “As you know, that’s a complete failure of the election office.”
Johnson County Commissioner Charlotte O’Hara advocated for the bill, questioning Sherman’s authority to send out the advance ballot applications.
“Why would the state stand mute while a local county election commissioner unilaterally mails 417,865 prefilled advance ballot applications without consulting and/or receiving approval from the secretary of state?” she asked.
“I am asking the Legislature to be the adult in the room and say, ‘Absolutely you do not mail unsolicited advanced ballot applications out of the election commissioners office.’
“It’s an unnecessary expense,” she said.
