Kansas voters have been inundated with mail ballot applications. Here’s what to do
A deluge of mail ballot applications sent to Kansans from out of state is causing unprecedented work for election officials and confusion for voters.
Here’s what those voters who want to vote by mail need to know, and what they might want to do.
First, understand what the mail ballot application frenzy is all about — besides voters trying to avoid COVID-19 in the important 2020 election.
Literally anyone can send you an application with which you can request an official mail ballot from your county election office. Political parties and campaigns do it, but other entities can do it, too. This year, many thousands of Kansans already have received such unsolicited but legitimate applications for a mail ballot, including from an organization called the Center for Voter Information using a Springfield, Missouri, post office box.
The blanket mailings, while addressed to people by name, are being sent to many voters who have already requested mail ballots on their own. In fact, Douglas County Clerk Jamie Shew says 70% of the record 27,000 mail ballot applications voters have sent in there have been duplicates.
In other words, thousands of people who had already requested mail ballots for the November election were fooled into thinking that they needed to re-apply for a mail ballot. They didn’t, and they don’t.
That’s happening all over the state, meaning that election officials have to process thousands and thousands of unnecessary duplicate applications while they’re also processing voter registration forms and gearing up for the start of in-person advance voting Oct. 19.
If you receive one of these third-party applications in the mail, and have already applied to the county for a mail ballot, you don’t need to send in another. Shred it or trash it. Don’t burden county election officials with make-work when they’re certifiably busier than ever before.
Actual ballots go out to voters beginning Oct. 14.
One voter, one ballot
There’s not really any danger of fraud: Election officials are making sure only one ballot is mailed to each voter who requests it, no matter how many times he or she requests it. What it is doing is smothering officials in needless work.
“There’s not going to be a mistake made here. It’s just going to be a lot of additional work and cost to the county,” says Johnson County Election Commissioner Connie Schmidt, “because this office has to treat each application as if it’s a brand-new one. So we have to have staff on board here to process each and every one.”
Johnson County, with a voter base of more than 434,000, has processed more than 120,000 mail ballot applications already. “It’s something we’ve never done before, this many,” Schmidt says.
If you are unsure whether your original mail ballot application was accepted by the county, you can call the election office — some 600 Johnson County voters did when the mail ballot application flurry started — or check the county election website. In Johnson County, that’s jocoelection.org/voterview. Once you put in your name and date of birth, enter your date of birth again under “Advance Ballot” and click “Look Up” to check on the status of your mail ballot application.
The blizzard of mail ballot applications has election officials snowed under, but confident they’ll dig out by the Oct. 27 deadline for mail ballot requests.
That’s a deadline Schmidt doesn’t like to publicize, for fear of encouraging voters to procrastinate. While the Oct. 27 date is set by law, practically speaking, it requires the post office to then get the ballot to you, then you to fill your ballot out and get it postmarked by Election Day Nov. 3, and to the elections office by the following Friday.
What could go wrong?
“I don’t want people to wait that late. That’s almost too late,” Schmidt says.
There are special drop boxes put out so you don’t necessarily have to mail your ballot back. And Shew does say the Postal Service has been great to work with, as unique designs and bar codes have made ballots easier for postal officials to spot.
Yet, with everything that’s riding on this election, should you leave anything to chance? Vote early — and not often, despite the flood of ballot applications.