This article is part of U.S. Democracy Day, a nationwide collaborative on Sept. 15, the International Day of Democracy, in which news organizations cover how democracy works and the threats it faces. To learn more, visit usdemocracyday.org
TOPEKA — As former President Donald Trump spreads misinformation on election security ahead of the November election, Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab is betting on clear safeguards and local-level officials to keep Kansas voter confidence intact.
“Well, sometimes Trump screams and people are scared to stand up,” Schwab said. “I’ll stand up.”
Schwab over the past four years has responded to concerns about election integrity by reinforcing policies that safeguard Kansas elections. His public education efforts and legislative changes he shepherded are aimed at preserving Kansans’ trust in election results and curbing skepticism.
Schwab’s 2018 campaign centered around a “no drastic changes” approach, arguing that Kansans had already seen enough changes in the voting process. But after the 2020 election, he said in a recent interview, he saw that “everybody was attacking the election system.”
Shwab said he asked himself, “What are some basic security measures we can put in the statute that would say, ‘Hey, we did an election integrity bill,’ that wouldn’t make it harder for voters to vote?”
Schwab tasked Connie Schmidt, a former Johnson County election officer, with checking polling locations to ensure baseline security. This practice wasn’t mandated, and Schwab spent $1 million more than he intended to on the project. But the idea was to counter potential claims from election deniers.
The results were minor adjustments, like separating voting storage areas and ensuring that two officials are present while accessing voter equipment rooms.
“That way, if something negative does come out, there’s accountability,” Schwab said.
Schwab also convinced lawmakers to increase penalties for messing with election equipment, set guidelines for ballot drop boxes, and put standard practices — like ensuring that voting machines are not connected to the internet — into law.
“They weren’t (connected to the internet) anyway, but now it’s against the law,” Schwab said. “We can say that, and that just gives another layer of confidence.”
Schwab said he isn’t too worried about Trump’s claims of stolen elections echoing through Kansans, and doesn’t believe they’ve made much of an impact. Trump hasn’t targeted Kansas as one of the states where elections are a problem, likely because he won here by a large margin.
But Kansas isn’t immune to election-related controversy.
Schwab’s predecessor, now Attorney General Kris Kobach, lost a high-profile federal lawsuit in 2018 where Kobach failed to prove his claims of widespread voter fraud. Current Kansas GOP chairman Mike Brown, who lost to Schwab in the 2022 primary for secretary of state, frequently spread election-related conspiracies and alleged the 2020 election was stolen from Trump.
After the 2022 primary, which included the defeat of an anti-abortion constitutional amendment by a 59-41 margin, 65% of ballots were recounted. Anti-abortion activists paid $119,000 to recount the votes of nine counties, state Rep. Tatum Lee-Hahn, a Republican election denier from Ness City, requested a recount in her race, and state Sen. Caryn Tyson, a Republican from Parker, requested a recount of six counties for the GOP state treasurer’s race.
Not one county result flipped. Schwab said “the phones quit ringing after that.”
Trump acknowledged the legitimacy of the abortion amendment vote in Tuesday’s presidential debate.
“Kansas, the vote was liberal,” he said. “Much more liberal than people would’ve thought.”
Schwab has said the two major parties differ in how they complain about election integrity. He said Democrats focus on voter suppression, in the form of laws and policies that limit access to voting, while Republicans focus on voter fraud, in the form of illegal ballots cast. Pew research found that while Democrats’ trust in elections has been increasing, Republicans’ has been decreasing.
Still skeptical?
“Go be a poll worker,” Schwab said.
“We need Republican eyes on the election. We need critical thinking in our polling centers,” Schwab said. “If you’re skeptical, it’s because you’re a critical thinker. So go be a poll worker. Go help us out. Go make the system better.”
Laura Rainwater, Schwab’s appointed election commissioner for Sedgwick County, said poll workers juggle so many checks and balances they often find it daunting. They see a side to elections that the voters don’t — like the many forms and checklists that require two signatures, from poll workers of different parties.
Mike Stieben, a Leavenworth County Commissioner who ran in the GOP primary for a Kansas House seat, lost his primary by 37 votes. On primary night, the secretary of state website showed Stieben held a 41-vote lead. But by the next morning, his opponent was ahead. Despite the close numbers, Stieben didn’t request a recount.
As a commissioner, Stieben has seen the process of many elections. He’s watched poll workers hand-count ballots, which have been an exact match to the machine-counted ballots every time.
“I’m not against people having a review or audit done on their election,” Stieben said. “But I think you have to think it through really closely.”
Close races like Stieben’s are one of the reasons the secretary of state’s website features a pop-up window on the unofficial election results page, reminding Kansans that mail-in, hand-counted, or other legally cast ballots were still being processed.
Mail-in ballots have been used for decades in Kansas to ensure voters’ voices are heard, but they became a point of contention after the 2020 election. And in the August primary in Kansas, approximately 1,000 mail-in ballots were “either properly postmarked but received by county election offices after the three-day grace period or lacked a required postmark,” according to a news release from the secretary of state’s office.
“If there’s any election fraud, it’s the United States Post Office, because they don’t deliver ballots. And if there’s any voter suppression, it’s the United States Post Office because they don’t deliver ballots,” Schwab said. “Now they have something they can bite into and complain about, because I’m complaining about the post office too.”
Schwab last week requested an explanation from the postmaster general on how the U.S. Postal Service will ensure every ballot is postmarked correctly and will arrive on time for the November general election.
Despite Schwab’s frustration with the Postal Service for mail-in ballots, Schwab remains firm that any reason to deny election results lacks proof. He found that when he asks election deniers who benefited, they’re at a loss.
“So when you ask somebody saying that there’s massive voter fraud, but they can’t say what’s the benefit, who did it, how it happened, suddenly people don’t believe you anymore,” Schwab said. “We’re seeing more and more that the folks who are loud on voter fraud, they’re just not swaying anybody anymore. You’re just kind of a banging gong and a clashing cymbal.”
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Publish date : 2024-09-14 21:57:00
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