Trust is the price KCK officials paid to stop candidates from contesting the election

Wyandotte County District Judge Bill L. Klapper on Tuesday dismissed a court action to contest the Aug. 3 primary election. But his decision did nothing to answer questions about whether the votes logged on that day were the result of a fair and legitimate process.

The Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, may have won a court argument, but from where I sat in the back of that third floor courtroom, they definitely lost any faith or trust those questioning the election might have had in their government officials.

Maybe UG leaders don’t care. But they should, because if questions remain — and they do — about how many votes candidates received and who really won in a variety of primary contests, there can be no confidence in the general election results, or for that matter, in future elections.

Tscher “Cece” Manck, who lost her campaign for a seat on the UG Board of Commissioners and Sandra Duffy, the wife of Daran Duffy, who lost in the mayoral race, sought to contest the election in district court after identifying a series of possible discrepancies in the vote tallies. Several other candidates, including longtime politician and mayoral candidate Chris Steineger, also raised questions about the election results, as did Mary Gerlt, who ran for an at-large seat on the Board of Public Utilities.

What the questioning candidates really want, and feel they deserve, is a credible explanation showing that the elections were fair and that votes weren’t tampered with. They didn’t get that Tuesday.

In courtroom testimony, Manck made the case that the UG tried to block her from going after the truth. Which of course only added to her belief that there was some finagling with votes. She told The Star weeks ago, and repeated in court, that before taking the judiciary route, she sought help from the UG’s election commissioner, the district attorney and the secretary of state’s office. And no one offered her instructions on how to contest the election.

They now say everything was fine because she didn’t question the process in the right way. But that they wouldn’t tell her what would have been the right way is really unfortunate.

Klapper seemed sympathetic but had no leeway, he said. “It is important to the court to do the right thing. But the court has to have the authority to do the right thing. You have to convince me that I can exercise my passion.”

His job, he said, was to determine whether the court had authority to even hear Manck’s and Duffy’s allegations, and he decided that it didn’t.

The Unified Government had asked the court to dismiss the case, arguing that Manck and Duffy had not followed the correct state procedure to contest a primary election. Objections should have been heard first before a board made up of the election commissioner, the district attorney and another local elected official whose position is not involved in the controversy.

OK, but how were they to know this when none of the many officials they contacted said so? It’s troubling that no one told them how to object the right way at any point before announcing that they had done it the wrong way. Nor did they tell me, and why is that?

Election Commissioner Michael Abbott, who spoke with Manck and Duffy before they took the matter to court, told the judge that he did explain all of this. But with all the work that Manck and Duffy put into filing this court action, it doesn’t make sense that they would have ignored the first-step hearing if they’d known that not doing so would make all of their efforts a waste of time.

“I appreciate you all doing your best to bring some things to light,” the judge told them. He reminded them that some of what they had outlined in their court document “could be considered criminal acts,” and suggested they consider taking them to the district attorney.

Manck, who isn’t giving up, marched right over to DA Mark Dupree’s office when she left the courthouse. It would be shocking if he agreed to investigate, but that would be a welcome shock.