Kansas Secretary of State offers advice for voters casting ballots through mail

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab says voters should have confidence in the security of this year’s elections, but voters casting their ballot by mail will want to pay extra attention.

As of the end of the day on Oct. 28, Schwab’s office had mailed out 157,705 ballots to voters across Kansas, with 68,410 of them returned so far.

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Schwab has been paying close attention to mail-in ballots since the August primary when roughly 1,000 ballots were never counted because the United States Postal Service failed to postmark the ballots by the required deadline.

The instance led to a back-and-forth between Schwab and USPS Postmaster General Louis DeJoy.

Schwab eventually described the conversations as “productive.”

He said it’s best if voters place their ballots in a drop box or hand deliver them to their local elections office.

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“Take Liberal, Kansas, for example. The clerk’s office is across the street from the post office,” Schwab said. “You put it (ballot) in the blue drop box that’s owned by the feds, it goes to either Lubbock, Texas, or Santa Fe, New Mexico, to Kansas City, to hopefully show up across the street. Or, you can just put it in the drop box across the street, which is way more secure.”

For Kansas voters who mail their ballots, they can check the status of their vote on votekansas.gov.

If the ballot hasn’t arrived by Election Day, Schwab said to vote twice.

“There’s a ballot tracker to see if they got your ballot at the county, and if they haven’t, then go vote Election Day and they’ll give you a provisional,” Schwab said. “If the ballot shows up in the grace period, that counts. If it doesn’t, then the provisional counts. Either way, you get to vote.”

KSHB

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Tuesday, Oct. 29, marked the last day voters could apply for an advanced voting mail ballot.

Other important deadlines are available on the Secretary of State’s website.

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