As provisional votes are counted today in Johnson County and Sedgwick County, Gov. Jeff Colyer’s chief legal counsel has issued an opinion on unaffiliated voters casting ballots.
This week, all counties in Kansas will be considering whether to count provisional ballots. Wyandotte County’s Board of Canvassers will meet at 9 a.m. Thursday, Aug. 16, at the Election Office, 850 State Ave., Kansas City, Kansas.
Gov. Jeff Colyer and challenger Kris Kobach both had about 41 percent of the vote statewide in a very close contest for the GOP nomination for governor.
The governor’s chief legal counsel sent his opinion to all county election officials in the state.
The opinion stated that, “Kansas law provides that an unaffiliated voter must be permitted to affiliate with a party on primary election day and vote in a party’s primary. K.S.A. 25-3301(c). However, sometimes when an unaffiliated voter seeks to affiliate and vote in a party primary, a poll worker (often a volunteer) simply instructs the unaffiliated voter to fill out a provisional party ballot rather than a party affiliation statement. Kansas law requires canvassers to look to the intent of the voter to correct this technical error by the poll worker and count the primary vote.”
Poll worker errors should be disregarded by the county canvassing board and the votes should be counted, according to the statement from the governor’s attorney, Brant M. Laue.
“Specifically, Kansas law expressly provides that such poll worker errors should be disregarded by the county canvassing board: “No ballot, or any portion thereof, shall be invalidated by any technical error unless it is impossible to determine the voter’s intention. Determination of the voter’s intention shall rest in the discretion of the board canvassing in the case of a canvass.” K.S.A. 25-3002(b)(1). This guiding principle has special importance in elections for governor: “[Even though] provisions of law may not have been fully complied with in noticing and conducting the election . . . the real will of the people may not be defeated by any technical irregularity of any officer.” K.S.A. 25-702(b),” the governor’s attorney stated.
There is a possibility this election could end up in court, and on Friday, Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt advised election officials in all counties to preserve all records related in any way to the primary election.
On Friday, Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt ask election officials to preserve all records.
“Despite the unusual circumstances of this close gubernatorial election, I know all county election officials are focused intently on performing their duties in a manner that ensures confidence in the eventual outcome of the election,” Schmidt said. “To assist with that, I am issuing this reminder of their duty to maintain all potentially relevant records. This is a common step when litigation is anticipated. I suspect local officials already would have done this as a matter of course, but as the state’s chief legal officer, and because of the obvious statewide importance of any potential litigation related to this election, I felt it prudent to provide this clear guidance in a manner that is uniform statewide so there can be no confusion or misunderstanding.”