TOPEKA — An aide to the secretary of state warned lawmakers Tuesday that moving all local elections to even-numbered years, so that candidates for city, county and school board seats appear on the same ballot as candidates for president or governor, would have consequences for voters and election officials.
The proposal is among numerous changes to election law sought by Rep. Pat Proctor, a Leavenworth Republican who chairs the House Elections Committee and is running for the GOP nomination for secretary of state, which administers elections. Proctor said moving elections to even-numbered years would improve voter turnout, which a voting rights advocate pointed out was at odds with Proctor’s record of making it more difficult to participate in elections.
Clay Barker, general counsel for the Secretary of State’s office, said during a hearing before Proctor’s committee that combining elections would “exponentially increase” the number of ballot versions printed, to account for the boundary lines of small offices, such as school board seats and drainage districts.
He also said the ballots would be much longer, costing more to print and leading to longer lines at the polls as voters take more time to fill them out.
“The county will have to decide, do we handle that extra time and number of voters by having more polling places, more equipment and more staff, or do they make the strategy to push advanced voting, either in person or by mail, perhaps even sending out” advanced ballot applications, Barker said.
Counties also would have to figure out how to handle primary ballots, where only registered Republicans and Democrats can vote in their party’s races while nonpartisan elections would be conducted at the same time.
Additionally, Barker said, voter fatigue from long ballots could result in simply voting along party lines based on information provided by special interest groups.
Proctor responded by asking Barker why he identified his testimony on House Bill 2452 as “neutral.”
“You talked a lot about concerns and challenges,” Proctor said, “and I’ll dig into it with the clerks, because they’re the ones that do this day to day. Secretary of State’s Office has no position on the value of increasing voter turnout for an election?”
Barker said the office “would always be in favor of more turnout.”
“At the same time, I was just trying to make sure you were aware of some of the implementation issues,” Barker said.
If passed, the law would take effect in 2028.
Partisan flair
Only four people testified in support of the bill — two Republican legislators and representatives from two right-wing, out-of-state groups. Forty-three Kansans submitted opposition testimony.
Katherine Bennett of the American Legislative Exchange Council spoke in favor of the bill but asked that her testimony be re-labeled from “proponent” to “neutral” because of the organization’s nonpartisan nonprofit status. Rep. Alexis Simmons, a Topeka Democrat, questioned the authenticity of the move.
“Were you invited to the committee, or did ALEC seek this out?” Simmons asked.
Bennett said she was invited.
