Kansas Republicans Aim To Secure Elections With Fewer Ballot Drop Boxes, More Oversight

On Tuesday, Kansas Republicans made a significant step towards more secure elections when a Senate committee approved a bill to limit the use of ballot drop box.

The Committee on Federal and State Affairs sponsored the measure. SB 208 The bill would reduce the number of drop boxes per county to one and improve oversight of the boxes during elections. The legislation would allow for a fewer number of ballot drop boxes per county and improve oversight during election cycles. billThe county’s only drop box would be “located inside the county election office” And “continuously observed by two individuals who are each affiliated with a recognized political party, but who are not affiliated with the same political party.”

The legislation also stipulates that drop boxes can only be accessed during office hours and that the box must be locked. “be closed, locked and shall not be accessible for the deposit of advance voting ballots after 7:00 p.m. on the date of the election.”

The last vote by the committee was 5-4, where two Republicans are joining the body’s Democrats in opposition.

As The Federalist’s Victoria Marshall said reportedBecause of this, many people use mail-in and ballot drop boxes, which can be dangerous and encourage ballot-harvesting. These are when outside parties collect ballots from voters and deliver them to polling locations. In CaliforniaFor instance, a Lodi City Democrat City Council member was taken into custody last week “for multiple election fraud charges,” This included allegations of ballot harvesting.

Kansas GOP Attorney General Kris Kobach spoke in support of the measure during Monday’s hearing before the committee. She argued it would prevent such practices.

“If you have unmonitored drop boxes, that crime is easy to commit without any detection whatsoever,” Kobach . “If you’re using an unmonitored drop box, no one can tell whether you dropped off 10, 22, or 100 ballots. … Now, in contrast, if you use a county election office to hand in your ballots ahead of time … there’s somebody there receiving them.”

GOP Senator Mike Thompson, who is the Chair of the Committee on Federal and State Affairs described the importance of the legislation in an interview with The Federalist. He also noted that while “Kansas may not share the national spotlight with other states where the harvesting of ballots has been identified, it does not mean that it does not happen here.” He said that Kansas cannot allow this to happen.

“If the voting process can be viewed as ensuring a legitimate and verifiable chain of custody from the voter’s hand to the casting and counting of the ballot, then the remote ballot drop box represents the weakest link in the chain … one that can be easily exploited,” Thompson stated. “Kansas is like many other rural states where urban population centers are growing, and the rest of the state is losing population. As a result, the large number of voters in just a few counties essentially determine the outcome of statewide elections.”

“This makes it even more critical