BY: SHERMAN SMITH AND ANNA KAMINSKI
Kansas Reflector
TOPEKA — Senate President Ty Masterson celebrated passage Monday of two more bills that would reshape Kansas elections.
The latest legislation to be endorsed by both the House and Senate would ban the use of ranked-choice voting in Kansas and restrict funding for election-related activities, such as voter registration efforts.
The Legislature now has sent three election bills to the governor’s desk. The other one would narrow the window for advance ballots to arrive at county election offices.
“Over the past several years, Kansas Republicans have taken several common-sense steps to ensure that our elections are safe and secure, and these three bills further accomplish that goal,” Masterson said in a statement. “I encourage the governor to sign all three and join us in making our election laws a model for the nation.”
Gov. Laura Kelly could sign the bills, let them become law without her signature, or use her veto pen. The Legislature could override a veto with two-thirds support in both chambers — 84 House members and 27 senators.
Senate Bill 4, which the House passed 80-39 on Feb. 27 and the Senate passed 30-10 on March 6, would end the three-day grace period for advance ballots. Currently, ballots are counted if they are postmarked by Election Day and received by the following Friday. The law would require ballots to be returned instead by 7 p.m. on Election Day.
Based on last year’s numbers, the change could result in more than 2,000 ballots being disqualified statewide in a general election.
The House passed Senate Bill 5 and Senate Bill 6 by 86-37 margins on March 13.
SB 5, which the Senate passed 32-8 on Monday, would prohibit election officials from accepting funds for election expenses from any source not authorized by the Legislature.
The bill requires federal election funding only be used for purposes authorized by Congress. The law would explicitly prohibit the use of federal funding for election-related activities that include voter registration and voter assistance.
SB 6, which the Senate passed 30-10 on Monday, would prohibit any form of ranked-choice voting methods in federal, state, county or municipal elections.
The method gives voters the option to rank candidates in order of preference, and if the first choice doesn’t have the votes to win, the ballot counts for the next choice. Kansas has not used ranked choice voting in official state-run or county-run elections. It was last used in the state during the 2020 party-run Democratic presidential primary.
Other election-related bills and proposed constitutional amendments are still working their way through the Legislature.
They include a change to the way Kansas Supreme Court justices are selected with Senate Resolution 1611 and expanding or eliminating campaign finance spending limits.
The potential combination of electing state Supreme Court justices, gerrymandering and excessive spending on campaigns would mean Kansans can’t truly pick their candidates, said Davis Hammet, president of Loud Light Civic Action.
The result is an “incredible amount of control” over the state, he said.
The underlying intent of the campaign finance bill, which was forwarded to the governor Friday, is to “make parties more powerful than PACs,” said Rep. Pat Proctor, a Leavenworth Republican and chair of the House elections committee.
“I don’t know about you, but as I’ve, you know, gone around talking to my constituents and folks around the state about campaign finance, the constant refrain that I hear from Kansans is that we need to get PAC money out of politics,” Proctor said during floor debate in early March.
Topeka Democrat Rep. Kirk Haskins said during the bill’s debate on the House floor that the shift in campaign contributions would have “major impacts on politics in Kansas as we know it.”