By ALEXANDRA MIDDLEWOOD and BRIAN AMOS
Insight Kansas
As political scientists who study Kansas politics, election administration, and political participation—and as the coauthors of a recent statistical analysis of Kansas’ special elections—we are compelled to speak out against Kansas House Bill 2503.
The bill would repeal the state’s 1983 Mail Ballot Election Act and prohibit municipalities from conducting all-mail elections. This proposal is not merely a matter of administrative preference; it runs directly counter to what the data tell us about how Kansans, especially rural Kansans, participate in our democracy.
In our research on 39 Kansas special elections conducted in 2024 and 2025, we examined turnout under two different systems: traditional in-person elections and elections conducted entirely by mail. These contests, often focused on school bond issues or local tax proposals, represent some of the most consequential—but also least visible—governance decisions affecting Kansas communities.
What we found was striking.
When elections were conducted entirely by mail, turnout increased dramatically. After carefully matching rural and urban voters on demographics, party registration, and turnout history, we estimated that all-mail elections increased the probability of voting by 21.7 percentage points.
This is not a marginal difference. It is a structural one.
Just as important, the rural-urban turnout gap nearly disappeared. In traditionally administered elections, rural voters were 3.5 points less likely to participate than urban voters. But when provided an all-mail system, the rural-urban gap shrank to less than one percentage point.
In other words: all-mail elections do exactly what legislators claim to value—they promote equitable participation across all geographic regions of our state.
The data is clear: rural Kansans benefit from all-mail elections. The explanation is straightforward: voting is not costless, and those costs fall disproportionately on rural residents.
Rural Kansans often travel long distances to a polling location, rely on deteriorating roads and minimal public transportation, and live in jurisdictions that struggle to maintain sufficient polling places and staff. Political science research has long shown that even modest increases in the time or effort required to vote depress turnout.
Put simply, rural Kansans face bigger hurdles when it comes to voting, and all-mail elections help remove those barriers.
Kansas has long embraced local control, particularly in election administration for special elections. County clerks and school districts understand their communities’ needs far better than legislators in Topeka. When local jurisdictions choose all-mail elections, they do so because it is the most accessible, cost-effective, and logistically feasible option.
HB 2503 would eliminate that choice. It strips local autonomy and silences rural voices.
If adopted, rural Kansans—who already face higher barriers to participation—would be pushed back into a system that statistically depresses their turnout. It is difficult to read the evidence and see this bill as anything other than a step backward for democratic participation in our state.
We argue that evidence, not assumptions, should drive Kansas’ election policy.
Much of the public debate around voting by mail has relied on speculation or rhetoric. But the state legislature need not speculate.
We have Kansas data on Kansas voters in Kansas elections and the findings are clear.
All-mail elections increase turnout. They mitigate geographic inequities. They ensure rural voters can make their voices heard on school funding, infrastructure, and public investments that directly affect their communities.
Lawmakers may disagree on many issues, but they should not ignore empirical evidence—especially when that evidence is produced by researchers in their own state examining their own elections.
As political scientists and Kansans, our conclusion is clear: HB 2503 would harm the very communities it claims to represent. If we are committed to a democratic process that includes all corners of Kansas—urban and rural alike—we must preserve municipalities’ ability to hold all-mail elections.
The Senate should reject House Bill 2503. Rural Kansans deserve better. They deserve a voting system grounded in evidence, not ideology.
Alexandra Middlewood and Brian Amos are associate professors of political science at Wichita State University. They co-founded IKE Lab in 2023 to offer data and analysis on Kansas elections.