By Grace Hills, Kansas Reflector
OLATHE — Twenty-one Johnson County public officials signed a letter urging the interim Johnson County election commissioner to reopen the eight early voting locations she closed ahead of the August primary for November’s general election.
They say closing the early voting sites undermines democracy — especially when almost 19% of early votes for the 2024 general election came from the closed sites. The commissioner says her plan will even out access across the county.
Connie Schmidt, the interim election commissioner, shut down eight early voting sites that were open for the 2024 general election. Each of the shuttered locations is in high-density parts of Johnson County — four in Overland Park, which is the second-largest city in Kansas, two in Olathe, and one in Leawood and Westwood, the half-mile-sized city in the county’s northeast corner bordering Kansas City, Kansas.
Schmidt placed a new early voting location in the fast-growing city of De Soto, and one in Spring Hill, the county’s southernmost city that is also experiencing a boom.
Schmidt also plans to double the number of ballot drop boxes and urged residents to use them, especially after Kansas overturned the three-day grace period to receive mail-in ballots.
The drop boxes will be at the Johnson County Election Office and Johnson County Northeast Offices in Olathe and Mission, and at each of the 14 Johnson County Library branches.
Two of those libraries, and one Olathe library, won’t host early voting sites like they did in the 2024 general election. The closure of early voting sites at those three sites — Overland Park’s Central Resource and Oak Park, and Olathe’s Downtown Library — and at the Johnson County Community College Midwest Trust Center is of particular concern to the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas.
Micah Kubic, executive director of the ACLU of Kansas, wrote in a letter to Schmidt that closing sites where the median household income is lower than the Johnson County average, with a large percentage of Black and Latino residents and along the Interstate 35 corridor will “disproportionately burden low-income voters, voters of color, elderly voters, voters with disabilities, and communities with limited transportation access.”
Johnson County is the wealthiest county in Kansas. The median household income is around $109,000 — but there are pockets where that number falls, sometimes to less than half of the median for the county.
The Olathe Indian Creek Library will remain open as an early voting site. According to U.S. Census tract data — which is neighborhood-level data — the average household income around the Indian Creek Library is around $75,000.
Roughly two miles down the street, the Olathe Downtown Library is one of the closed early voting sites. The median household income there is around $49,000. There is a bus stop near both libraries — and the downtown stop is closer to the entrance.
“For many voters, particularly those balancing multiple jobs, relying on public transportation, or managing caregiving responsibilities, proximity to advance voting locations is not simply a convenience but a necessary condition for meaningful participation,” the letter from 21 public officials reads. “The removal of these advance voting locations risks longer travel times, increased congestion at remaining sites, and heightened barriers for communities already facing systemic obstacles to participation.”
Mike Kelly, chairman of the Johnson County Commission, separately urged Schmidt to reopen all sites for the general election. In a letter, he said the commission had budgeted for all 18 sites — including the closed ones — to operate for the 2026 election. He said the commission would have considered funding the new De Soto and Spring Hill sites.
Schmidt did not respond to phone calls from Kansas Reflector seeking comment for this story. But after around 60 people protested outside of the Johnson County Election Office, Schmidt met with constituents, where she told them her decision was final — including for the general election.
“Part of our decision was where the voters live,” Schmidt said, KCUR reported. “(More than) 80% of the voters in the 2024 election voted at these 10 top sites we kept.”
Almost 19% of early votes were cast at the now-shuttered sites for the 2024 general election.
The Johnson County Community College Midwest Trust Center brought in the most early votes of the closed sites, with 8,041. It was one of the 10 early voting sites that were open for the entire early voting period. In previous elections, different sites have operated in different hours and days.
Schmidt sent a memo outlining her plan to Kelly and Scott Schwab, the Kansas secretary of state, who appointed Schmidt as interim Johnson County election commissioner after a falling-out with her predecessor over an undisclosed policy disagreement.
Thomas Treacy, deputy director of communications and policy for Schwab’s office, said his office had no role in selecting the early voting locations “specifically to shield the process from interference by other elected officials.”
Schmidt said all early voting locations will have the same operating hours and will be open for two weeks this election year, including the Monday morning before Election Day.
“The goal is to establish equal access to early voting across the county and to standardize the days and hours of operation,” Schmidt wrote.
The 21 elected officials who signed the letter are now part of a growing group of opposition. More than 800 people have signed a petition to “protect our polls.”
The letter was signed by Democratic Kansas U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, all three Democratic gubernatorial candidates, Democratic state representatives and nonpartisan city officials. No Republicans and no one from Leawood — home of one of the eight shuttered sites — signed on.
In response to the letter, Overland Park City Council member Drew Mitrisin, who sent the letter on behalf of the officials, received a response from the Johnson County Election Office’s general email directing him to the 2026 Advance Voting Plan.
“Frankly, it made me more skeptical of this process and decision,” Mitrisin said. “The logic emphasizes land instead of real voters and completely disregards equity concerns.”
August’s ballot will host a question asking Kansans if they want to elect Kansas Supreme Court justices. Currently, the justices are nominated by a nonpartisan commission, which picks three candidates for the governor to choose from. In the next election cycle, Kansans vote on whether to retain the new justice. If retained, they face another retention vote every six years.
Most of the current justices were appointed by a Democratic governor. Republicans in the Legislature pursued the ballot question after the court upheld abortion rights and enforced a constitutional requirement for the Legislature to provide suitable funding for public schools.
In Johnson County, 68.5% of voters voted to protect abortion rights in the 2022 vote on a ballot question.
Nancy Mays is the co-founder of Boots on the Ground Midwest, an activist group against both the amendment and the closed early voting sites.
“I don’t know what the reason these polls were closed were because there was not a lot of transparency — or any transparency — around the closings,” Mays said. “It’s really unfortunate that it’s happening at any point in time, but most especially when we have an amendment on the ballot that could change the course of our state for decades to come.”
