By Morgan Chilson, Kansas Reflector
TOPEKA — Three advocacy organizations filed a lawsuit Monday in Douglas County District Court challenging the Kansas Legislature’s attempt to “arbitrarily” reject advance ballots of voters if the mail system fails to deliver them by Election Day.
Kansas Appleseed, Loud Light and Disability Rights Center of Kansas are asking the court to find Senate Bill 4 unconstitutional. Defendants are Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab and Douglas County Clerk Jamie Shew.
SB 4, which the Legislature passed this year, disqualifies any mail-in ballots not received by 7 p.m. on Election Day. Previously, mail-in ballots were counted if they were postmarked by Election Day and arrived within three days later.
Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed SB4 but that veto was overturned in both chambers, with votes falling along party lines.
In a statement, the three advocacy organizations called SB 4 a “deliberate and unconstitutional assault on Kansans’ fundamental right to vote.”
“This reckless law carelessly disregards the realities of postal delivery delays, which will disproportionately harm rural, elderly, and disabled voters,” the statement said. “Furthermore, this law deliberately undermines the will of Kansas voters who have increasingly chosen to vote by mail in recent election cycles.”
In the lawsuit, the advocacy organizations make a point that Kansans have been voting by mail ever since the Civil War. In 2017, the Legislature recognized that mail-in ballots arriving late deprived voters of their right to vote, and they instituted the three-day grace period.
During legislative debate on SB 4, former Rep. Ann Mah, a Topeka Democrat, called the bill “pure partisan politics.” Statistics show far more Democrats than Republicans use mail-in ballots, and she noted the bill’s lack of funding for an education program that would inform citizens of the change.
More Democratic votes would be rejected than Republican votes, Mah said.
“If you make this change and do not fund an education program, you’re intentionally causing thousands of votes to be thrown out,” she said. “That’s voter suppression.”
The lawsuit said 32,000 mail-in ballots were received after Election Day in the 2020 general election during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the 2024 general election, 2,110 ballots arrived during the grace period.
In Douglas County, Shew said he rejected more than 200 ballots in the Aug. 6, 2024, primary for arriving after the grace period, even though they were postmarked in July, the lawsuit said.
“SB 4’s threat of disenfranchisement is particularly acute for some of Kansas’s most vulnerable populations,” the lawsuit said. “The elderly and Kansans with disabilities often have little to no choice but to vote by mail. And rural voters and voters who are temporarily out-of-state, such as many college students, will also be disproportionately affected because their mail is less likely to be delivered in a timely manner.”
The lawsuit said the state of Kansas mails its ballots just 20 days before elections, unlike other states that send them out 30-45 days in advance. Kansas ties with Iowa as the two states with the shortest turnaround time, the filing said.
SB 4 is unconstitutional because it violates the equal protection clause that bans the state from arbitrarily rejecting voters’ ballots based on their geography and whether the post office did its job effectively, the lawsuit said.
“Its due process clause requires that Kansas establish adequate procedures to ensure that voters have a reliable, fair, and effective method to cast their ballots,” it said.
