Kansas battle could turn ugly
In tight gubernatorial race, state braces for legal action
WICHITA, Kan. — Kansas election officials began reviewing some 9,000 provisional ballots Monday as the two candidates in the state’s tight GOP primary for governor appeared to dig in for a long and potentially nasty legal fight that could take weeks to play out.
Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a take-no-prisoners conservative, led low-key Gov. Jeff Colyer by 110 votes out of more than 313,000 cast as of Friday evening. That was after late mail-in ballots were added to totals from absentee voting and ballots cast at the polls on Aug. 7.
The canvass began early Monday in suburban Kansas City’s Johnson County, where a board was set to review 1,800 provisional ballots, which are given at the polls to voters when their eligibility is in question. Seventy-six counties were to start canvassing Monday. Some will meet later this week and next.
It was unclear how many of the provisional ballots were from the GOP race. Based on past elections, Kobach said, it’s likely that about two-thirds of them were cast in the Republican primary.
A new fight was brewing on how to count unaffiliated voters who were simply given a provisional ballot by poll workers without first having them fill out a party-affiliation statement. It was unclear how many ballots fell into that category.
A legal opinion issued Monday by the governor’s top attorney took issue with the guidance issued by the person Kobach appointed to oversee vote counters after he recused himself.
Assistant Secretary of State Eric Rucker told county election officials Sunday that if an unaffiliated voter did not first complete a declaration of party affiliation, that voter was not entitled to cast a ballot. The opinion from the governor’s office said provisional ballots cast by unaffiliated voters in a primary should be construed as evidence of voter intent and must be counted.
The counties have until Aug. 20 to finish the review of ballots.
With such a slim margin separating the candidates, the canvass will be closely watched. Colyer’s campaign on Friday announced plans to have representatives in all 105 counties when provisional ballots are reviewed.
Attorney General Derek Schmidt is considering the possibility that one of the candidates will file a lawsuit challenging the election results. He sent a letter to county election officials reminding them to preserve “any paper files, notes or electronic data related in any way” to the election.