By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
The election process in the United States has become a point of contention in recent years. At Wednesday's Barton County Commission meeting, former County Commissioner and current Kansas Senator Alicia Straub voiced concerns about the recent primary election in Kansas. Straub said many items are out of Barton County Election Officer and County Clerk Bev Schmeidler's hands.
"We have the federal government regulating elections, we have the state government regulating elections," Straub said. "We have the Secretary of State issuing orders and things. It's just important that we all are aware of it. Not to sound too conspiracy theory-ish here today, but we must have secure elections."
Straub said currently the state has no way to audit voter rolls, or list of voters for a given area. Straub also mentioned election discrepancies in Reno and Cherokee counties. In Cherokee County, election officials have confirmed all counting was correct but original results put the incorrect vote totals next to the two candidates. Two hand counts have confirmed the correct results. In Reno County, advanced ballots caused a recount in the state treasurer's race. Both counties resolved the issues prior to the official canvass of votes.
"The system has that time gap in between election night to the final canvass to catch all these things," said Patrick Hoffman, counselor for Barton County. "I think in Reno County it's going to work out. They do a hand canvass, which has one member of each political party, and then a third person to watch them. They're going through all those by hand to get it right. At the end of the day it will take longer, but they'll get the correct vote in."
Schmeidler reported a clean election in Barton County. She said the voting equipment was tested before and after the election to ensure proper counting. Further, the Secretary of State tells the counties which races must be audited, and an outside agency randomly selects which precincts in those races to audit. Three races are typically audited locally, but five races were audited for this primary.
"We hire an independent board to conduct the audit," Schmeidler explained after the meeting. "We had four people who came in all day Thursday and again on Friday morning. They had to go through all of the ballots in each precinct and separate the ballots to be audited for each race from all of the others. They hand count and tally the results. They matched to our election night results exactly on every race audited. We were able to report a clean audit to the Secretary of State and were granted permission for the Board of County Canvassers to conduct the canvass this past Monday, Aug. 8."
Straub's concern about voting rolls involved those who may have address changes.
"The county clerks go through them periodically and remove people who are deceased, or have updated their drivers license," she said. "For any other purpose, we don't audit the voter roll. So we could have hundreds, thousands - statewide hundreds of thousands of people who are on our voter rolls who don't actually reside where their voter registration says they do."
County clerks use various methods to keep voting lists as accurate as possible. The National Change of Address process compares voter addresses to postal service addresses. Clerks also use addresses to confirm residency. The office uses obituaries, death notices, and felony conviction notices to update lists, and gets cancellations when voters register in another jurisdiction. DMV records are also used to solidify the list.
Straub plans to address some of her concerns in future legislative sessions.