Jay Sidie told to leave after concern about electioneering too close to early voting site

Jay Sidie, the Democratic candidate in Kansas’ 3rd District congressional race, was told to leave the parking lot of an early voting site Saturday after concerns about trying to campaign too close to a polling place.

According to Kansas law, people cannot try to persuade voters to vote for a candidate within 250 feet of the entrance of a voting site. The state law characterizes that as electioneering.

The first-time politician was campaigning near the Johnson County Arts and Heritage Center, one of the area’s six early voting sites. Sidie is now in a close race for the House seat with Rep. Kevin Yoder, the incumbent Republican.

Both Sidie’s campaign and election officials confirmed the interaction, although in a statement late Saturday a Sidie spokesman said the candidate was more than 250 away from the voting site.

Jay Sidie’s campaign manager, Shawn Borich, said the candidate “broke no laws.” He said Sidie left the voting site after being asked to move.

Ronnie Metsker, the Johnson County election commissioner, confirmed that Sidie had been asked to leave the prohibited area around the local polling place earlier in the day.

Metsker called the incident “frustrating.”

“I wouldn’t cut a candidate of this nature a whole lot of slack,” Metsker said, adding that a candidate for Congress should be aware of the state law.

Judi Farmer, the supervising judge at the election site, said she spoke with Sidie around noon Saturday. She said she had heard that Sidie was campaigning and greeting voters.

“He just was very pleasant and he left, that was all there was to it,” she said.

Metsker said on Saturday that he didn’t know if he was going to make a report about the incident. He said often that electioneering can be done by mistake by people who don’t know better. But he said this case with Sidie seemed to be different.

“When you have a significant candidate like this, it’s very disturbing,” he said.

According to the state’s website, electioneering is a class C misdemeanor. The Kansas Secretary of State’s office said Saturday afternoon that they did not have a report about the incident.

Yoder’s campaign spokesman C.J. Grover said Saturday the campaign was looking into filing a formal complaint with the Kansas secretary of state’s office.

“Everyone knows you can’t campaign at a polling place. Not only is this a clear violation of the law, it’s behavior that completely disqualifies Jay Sidie from holding higher office,” Grover said. “He’s already shown obvious contempt for the truth throughout this campaign, and now he’s displayed an utter lack of respect for Kansas law. This matter should immediately be referred to the appropriate election enforcement authorities for a formal investigation.”

Sidie’s campaign later released a statement maintaining that they did nothing wrong.

“Jay is committed to reaching out to voters around the district,” Borich said in an email.

“While he was more than 250 feet from the entrance of the polling places entrance in an abundance of caution when asked politely moved on with his campaigning. This is clearly an attempt by Kris Kobach and Sam Brownback’s handpicked allies trying to save Kevin Yoder by stopping us from telling voters about the disastrous economic policies of Brownback and Yoder.”

This story was originally published November 5, 2016 at 8:12 PM with the headline "Jay Sidie told to leave after concern about electioneering too close to early voting site."