Will Kansas mail problems cause GOP critics of ballot drop boxes to rethink opposition?
In Kansas’ August primary, one out of every 50 ballots mailed by voters, roughly 1,000 in all, didn’t count. Some arrived late. Others lacked a postmark.
The state secretary of state, Republican Scott Schwab, is now sounding the alarm about postal service unreliability, questioning whether slow or erratic delivery will disenfranchise voters in November. Election officials fear problems with postmarks, coupled with delays, could lead them to toss even more ballots this fall.
But one of the most obvious alternatives to mailing ballots – ballot drop boxes – remains contentious among Republicans.
While Kansans can use drop boxes this year, some Republicans have pushed to ban or restrict their use in recent years. The ongoing conflict over the drop boxes is largely rooted in baseless fears about their security that took hold as former President Donald Trump and his allies fomented false allegations of election fraud in the 2020 presidential election.
Postal delivery problems underscore the potential consequences of the drop-box battle. Voting rights advocates want an all-of-the-above approach to casting a ballot. But if the GOP-controlled Legislature eventually bans the boxes, voters will enjoy one less option to return their ballots in a state where early voting has only grown in popularity – and at a time when mail delivery is under strain.
The United States Postal Service has struggled for years with delivery problems and the Kansas City metro area is a hotbed of complaints. Members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat, have sent letter after letter to postal service leaders voicing concerns. As recently as Tuesday, five of the region’s U.S. representatives called on Postmaster General Louis DeJoy to take action to improve service.
“I voted by mail over the years, and I always assumed that my mail got priority,” said U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican who’s worried about whether ballots will arrive on time.
As concerns with mail delivery rise, some state lawmakers want to require video surveillance of drop boxes or restrict them to places with election personnel present. Under current law, local election officials decide whether to use drop boxes.
Some counties keep them outside election offices while others place them near libraries and other public buildings – a strategy that can make them significantly more convenient for voters.
Kansas state Sen. Mike Thompson, a Shawnee Republican who chairs the Kansas Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee, said he could support drop boxes that are monitored, but called unmonitored drop boxes problematic.
“The problem with the drop boxes is, if you look across the state, there’s a variety of different ways they’re being instituted,” Thompson said.
Thompson in March voted in favor of a bill that would have limited drop boxes to only advance polling locations and county election offices, a restriction that would have significantly curbed the convenience of location the boxes can offer. The state Senate rejected the bill, which contained many other election provisions, in an 18-22 vote.
The Legislature’s ability to ban or restrict drop boxes may depend on whether Republicans maintain supermajority control in the state House and Senate. Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly has vetoed previous voting restrictions.
Thompson said drop boxes have “got to come up” next session.
Drop boxes popular
Across Kansas, 167 drop boxes were in use for the 2022 election, according to the Kansas Secretary of State’s Office. Most counties either had between zero and two boxes. Johnson and Sedgwick counties – the most populous in the state – had the most, with eight and 14, respectively.
Nearly half of mail ballots in Johnson County are already returning via drop boxes. In Johnson County, about 46% of all mail ballots in the November 2023 general election were deposited in drop boxes, according to Johnson County Election Commissioner Fred Sherman.
If drop boxes were eliminated, some percentage of voters would probably return their ballots in-person at local election offices or simply vote on Election Day. But a significant portion would likely go into the mail.
“We just had an election for secretary of state two years ago between a guy who wanted to ban drop boxes and a guy who didn’t want to ban drop boxes,” said state Rep. Pat Proctor, a Leavenworth Republican who chairs the Kansas House Election Committee.
In 2022, Schwab faced a Republican primary opponent, former Johnson County Commissioner Mike Brown, who opposed drop boxes and promoted conspiracy theories about the 2020 election. Schwab defeated Brown by a 10-point margin, though Brown is now the chairman of the Kansas Republican Party.
“The Republican voters of Kansas chose the guy who didn’t want to ban drop boxes, so I think it’s pretty clear where the majority of my party is and it’s pretty clear where Kansans are. So I don’t think that we ought to change anything,” Proctor said.
Much of the opposition to drop boxes stems from the 2020 presidential election when some states quickly expanded their voting options as public health experts were seeking to limit the spread of COVID-19. Trump continued to oppose mail-in and absentee voting through the Republican primary this year but, after pressure from advisors, changed his tune and called absentee voting a “good option” in April.
Schwab has consistently made the same pitch to skeptical Republicans about drop boxes – that they’re less risky than sending your ballot through the mail, which often transports it out of state before bringing it back into Kansas. His election oversight has been praised across the political spectrum, though some far-right Republicans oppose him because he rejects election conspiracy theories.
Schwab sent a letter to DeJoy on Sept. 9 outlining his current concerns with postal delivery. Schwab wrote about the nearly 1,000 mail ballots in the August primary that weren’t counted because they either didn’t have a postmark or arrived after the state’s three-day grace period following Election Day.
Kansas law requires all mail ballots to arrive within three days of Election Day – the Friday following the Tuesday. To count, ballots received within the grace period must contain a postmark from Election Day or before, which ensures they weren’t cast after the election.
The postal service’s delivery failure disenfranchised nearly 1,000 Kansas voters, Schwab wrote. He asked DeJoy to explain how the postal service will ensure every ballot is postmarked and that every ballot placed in the mail before Election Day will arrive on time.
“As the chief election official in Kansas, I urge you to provide Kansans a clear explanation for your failure to provide service that enables Kansans to exercise their constitutional right to vote, and to articulate what action USPS will take to ensure that every ballot entrusted to the USPS for the November election is properly postmarked and delivered on time,” Schwab wrote.
Several Kansas City-area members of Congress followed with their own bipartisan letter to DeJoy on Tuesday. U.S. Reps. Sharice Davids, Emanuel Cleaver, Mark Alford, Jake LaTurner and Sam Graves wrote that their offices had received a growing number of messages about missing and delayed mail, along with reports of extended periods of no delivery at all.
The letter, which wasn’t specifically about election-related mail, came after an audit report from the USPS Office of the Inspector General released last week found issues related to delayed mail and clearance times at three postal facilities in the Kansas City area. The audit, conducted in May, identified nearly 56,000 pieces of delayed mail.
“Residents in rural, suburban, and urban communities across Kansas and Missouri rely on consistent and reliable mail service, and our postal workforce deserves better,” the lawmakers wrote.
USPS spokesperson Mark Inglett in a statement advised voters that as a “common-sense measure,” they should mail their completed ballots at least one week before the deadline for the ballot to be received by election officials. Given Kansas’ three-day grace period, that’s the Friday before Election Day.
“The U.S. Postal Service is committed to the secure, timely delivery of the nation’s Election Mail. In 2024, just as we have in previous elections, the Postal Service will fulfill our role in the electoral process when public policy makers choose to utilize the mail as a part of their election system or when voters choose to utilize our services to participate in an election,” Inglett said.
The postal service has a longstanding policy “to try to ensure” that every mailed ballot receives a postmark, Inglett said. Voters can ensure that ballots receive a postmark by going to the post office and requesting one when they mail their ballot, he said.
Ending grace period?
Delivery problems have led Kansas Republicans to try to end the ballot arrival grace period. Without a grace period, postmarks wouldn’t be necessary because all ballots would have to arrive by Election Day to count.
The Legislature in 2023 passed a bill that would require all ballots to arrive by 7 p.m. on Election Day. Kelly vetoed the measure and an effort to override the veto fell short in the state Senate.
“Ultimately, we don’t want to make it harder to vote. But we also don’t want to disenfranchise voters through no fault of their own,” said Proctor, who supports eliminating the grace period.
Kansas is one of at least 16 states and the District of Columbia that allow mailed ballots to count if they arrive after Election Day, according to data compiled by the Center for Election Innovation and Research, a nonprofit group that works to build confidence in elections. Most have grace periods longer than Kansas for ballots that were postmarked on or before Election Day. Washington State, for instance, counts ballots arriving up to three weeks after Election Day.
Kansas state Sen. Oletha Faust-Goudeau, a Wichita Democrat and the party’s ranking member on the state Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee, said she would prefer to extend the grace period.
“But if we’re going to address it in the law, if that other route is the way that we’ll go, then put it within the law that we’re going to inform and educate people of that change,” Faust-Goudeau said.
Whatever happens with the mail, drop boxes offer a convenient way to ensure votes count, Faust-Goudeau said.
The state senator mentioned how post offices on Tax Day would set out extra mail drop boxes so taxpayers could get their taxes filed by midnight. She said she’s never heard of any issues with those mail drop boxes.
“We’re in a different century now and we know that we’re moving fast … the drop boxes, I think we should utilize them to the full extent,” Faust-Goudeau said, “giving people that same option that they get if they’re using the drop box to meet that deadline of filing their taxes.”
