Committee considers shifting election-machine testing earlier in early voting period

A conference committee on elections discussed inserting a provision to move the statutory deadline for testing election machines earlier in the early-voting period.

Committee member 1 described the current requirement: “In Kansas statute, the election officers have to test election machines within 5 days of an election. And by that point, they've been early voting for 15 days.” He proposed inserting language to require machine testing “within 30 days of the beginning of early voting rather than within 5 days of the actual election day.”

Committee member 1 said the suggestion came after conversations with election officers, citing the Shawnee County Elections Office as raising the timeline mismatch. Another member asked what prompted the change; the response was that multiple county election officers had raised the issue in discussions around the state.

Committee members indicated no objection in principle to changing the testing timeline. One member said, “I don't think we have any issues with that on our side,” but the transcript records no formal approval or signed report adopting the change. As with other items discussed in the meeting, committee members noted that required signatures on a conference committee report would be necessary before taking any change to the floor.

The committee adjourned after discussing both the testing-timeline proposal and other conference-report business; no formal final action on the testing-timeline language was recorded in the provided transcript.