Kansas secretary of state briefs Senate committee on drop boxes, voter roll maintenance and election security

Secretary of State Scott Schwab told the Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee on a briefing that county election officials operate most of Kansas’s election machinery and that the state office provides guidance and limited direct authority for the largest counties.

“We do have 4 counties that I do have direct authority over, and those are the 4 largest, which would be Johnson, Wyandotte, Shawnee, and, of course, Sedgwick,” Schwab said. “The other hundred and 4 county clerks ... are subject to the authority of their county commission.”

Schwab outlined current federal and state laws that shape Kansas election administration and described proposals and operational concerns the office is tracking. He cited the Voting Rights Act of 1965, UOCAVA (1968) for military and overseas voters, the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, and the Help America Vote Act as part of the legal framework. At the state level he referenced the 2011 SAFE Act (introduction of voter ID) and said Kansas strengthened election security in 2022 to prohibit tabulators from being connected to the internet.

Why this matters: the committee was briefed as legislators consider bills that would change the handling of ballot drop boxes and other administrative details. Schwab said those changes could affect counties’ procedures and requested statutory clarity for drop‑box standards and for cleaning voter rolls.

Schwab addressed three areas the committee pressed him on: drop boxes, voter‑roll maintenance, and funding for election security. On drop boxes, he said the secretary of state’s office has been neutral on a proposal to remove a three‑day waiting period but urged lawmakers to keep drop boxes under county control and grant the office regulatory authority to set security standards. “If you’re gonna do that, please let us keep the drop boxes at the county level,” he said. “We just want minute we wanna set a standard for security on those boxes.” He added, “It is our recommendation that they pick them up and lock them at 07:00.”

Schwab said the office wants clear physical standards: “We want them bolted down to concrete where it could be monitored by the county, and it is on county property.” He also described operational safeguards counties use, including two‑person chains of custody and cameras, and said some rural counties opt not to deploy drop boxes because of cost.

On voter‑roll maintenance, Schwab described “list maintenance” procedures and the limited legal reasons a registrar may remove a voter: felony conviction, death, a written request from the voter, or relocation out of state. He said counties also send notices and remove voters who show no election activity for four years (which he described as a process that can result in removal after about eight years if no contact is made). “As we find those, we chase them down or give it to the county and say, hey, where was this person registered?” he said.

Schwab gave several operational statistics: the presidential preference primary recently had roughly 16 percent turnout; the office recorded about 1.3 million ballots cast in the most recent general election; and Kansas now has more than 2 million registered voters in a state population he cited at about 3.1 million. On funding, he said the office requested $500,000 to support the presidential preference primary but received roughly half; he said HAVA and other funds supported more than $2 million in election‑security spending and that the office contracted with veteran county election official Connie Schmidt to audit and recommend county security improvements.

Committee members asked Schwab about whether emergency‑management grant dollars could flow directly to counties rather than through the secretary of state. Schwab said he was not sure and offered to have his federal‑funds team follow up and send the committee a written response.

On equipment and hand counting, Schwab said no Kansas counties currently perform full hand counts; all use equipment to tabulate paper ballots and maintain paper records for verification. He said equipment requirements after HAVA include battery backups and contingency machines so outages do not halt voting.

The committee asked several technical and policy questions and heard Schwab’s operational recommendations; he closed by offering staff follow‑up to provide county‑level data on drop‑box usage and funding flows. The committee thanked Schwab for the briefing and moved on to other business.