Kris Kobach proposes voting-machine audits, files new voter fraud cases

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach on Monday unveiled a plan that would require counties to perform audits of voting equipment for all elections starting in 2017.

The proposal would provide for a percentage of precincts or districts to be manually audited after election day election day and before the vote is certified by county officials.

Kobach presented his bill to the House Elections Committee, calling it a “robust” plan that would allow for a broader audit if discrepancies were found.

“It goes well beyond what most states do,” Kobach said.

Kobach had come under fire when he turned down requests from Beth Clarkson, a Wichita State University statistician, to review Sedgwick County voting machine tapes from 2014. Clarkson said she had identified anomalies in election results.

Kobach said Kansas law prohibited such an audit but that he favored audits of election equipment. Under his proposal, bipartisan election boards would oversee the audits in a public setting, Kobach said.

Kobach noted that some machines, such as those in Johnson County, don’t provide “paper backup” for manual counting. As Johnson County replaces its machines in the coming months, officials should choose equipment that provides a backup paper trail, he said.

Kobach also announced Monday three new voter fraud cases, including one in Johnson County, to add to three that were announced last fall.

Kobach has vowed to fight fraudulent voting with tougher registration laws and prosecutions, and last year the Legislature gave him the power to prosecute voter fraud. He is the only secretary of state in the nation who has such authority.

Michael L. Hannum was charged last week in Johnson County District Court with three misdemeanor counts and one felony count for allegedly voting more than once in the 2012 election. The other cases were in Sedgwick and Ellis counties.

Hannum, who lives in Omaha, Neb., told The Associated Press that county prosecutors in both Kansas and Nebraska had told him they weren’t going to file cases.

Kobach told committee members that allegations in the cases were of “double voting,” voting in the same election in separate jurisdictions.

Rep. Tom Sawyer, a Wichita Democrat, questioned the seriousness of the cases and said they didn’t seem to be about voters trying to alter elections.

“It sounds like people honestly not knowing they couldn’t vote in those states,” Sawyer said.

Kobach disagreed that the cases lacked gravity, saying that any illegal votes cancel out legitimate ones and can effect the outcome of elections.

Kobach’s efforts so far have netted one conviction, a guilty plea.

In December, Steven Gaedtke pleaded guilty in Johnson County District Court to one misdemeanor count related to unlawful voting in 2010 and agreed to pay a $500 fine and court costs. His wife, Betty, also was charged and has a trial date in February.

Trey Pettlon, lawyer for Betty Gaedtke said earlier that the couple had made a mistake in 2010 while in the middle of moving from Olathe to Arkansas. They applied for advance voting ballots from Johnson County and submitted them, then voted in the election in Arkansas in person. It wasn’t a presidential election, so they weren’t voting twice for the same candidates.

“They weren’t stuffing ballot boxes or anything,” said Pettlon said.

The cases last fall against the Gaedtkes and a third, against Lincoln Wilson in western Kansas, marked the start of Kobach’s crackdown. Wilson was charged with multiple counts of unlawful voting that included felony charges for voting in both Kansas and Colorado.

This story was originally published January 25, 2016 at 1:18 PM with the headline "Kris Kobach proposes voting-machine audits, files new voter fraud cases."