As lawmakers scheme to pass a destructive voting bill, let’s conceive of something better. 

The Kansas House has passed SB 4, a bill that eliminates the three-day mail processing period affixed to Election Day that allows fully eligible voters to have their mail ballots counted.  

This isn’t just an attack on our rights, it’s an affront to our core human sensibilities. 

Kansas lawmakers created this law in 2017 with nearly unanimous support. The logic was simple: mail delays posed an obstacle to voters, so this collection period was a safeguard so votes cast on time would still be counted. 

Still, lawmakers, including the bill’s sponsor Rep. Pat Proctor, have spent over half the time since trying to overturn the law with yearly bills with specious reasoning. This time around, Proctor falsely claimed that thousands of ballots were thrown out for not being postmarked, but Loud Light’s investigation found that there were only 78 such occurrences in 2024.  

Kansans love early voting; our polling shows that 70% believe politicians should focus on making voting more accessible; 65% believe counties should be required to offer the maximum-allowed early voting period; over half even support prepaid postage for mail ballots. 

This year’s SB 4  passed both chambers of the legislature and was just vetoed by Governor Kelly. It’s up to us now to contact legislators and Governor Kelly to block the bill.

What a productive early voting bill might look like
 

Kansas state law currently only allows 20 days of advance voting. However, counties get to choose individually how many days of early voting they allow, and it can vary wildly from county to county. 

Last year, Proctor introduced a convoluted bill that masqueraded as a compromise; it got rid of the mail collection period and moved up deadlines to register to vote but allowed early voting to begin three days earlier. 

By suggesting they move up the start of early voting, Proctor is highlighting an important fact: there are no federal restrictions on how soon early voting can begin. 

This gives Kansas lawmakers a tremendous amount of freedom to open up early voting. There were 91 days between the primary and the general election in 2024, which means there’s tremendous opportunity to allow Kansans to vote earlier. 

In fact, election officials already are required to send out ballots 45 days before Election Day to military members and citizens living overseas. Since the ballots are ready and the systems underway already, we could mail out all early voting ballots at this time, no matter which county a voter lives in. 

Working within the existing framework, we would suddenly have doubled the mail early voting period for Kansans. 

You may call me a dreamer
 

My qualms with SB 4 go as deep as their baseline assumption in calling the mail collection period a “grace period.” This isn’t a favor from lawmakers to voters; this is one mechanism by which the legislature can do their most basic duty to make voting accessible. 

Maybe lawmakers would realize it’s possible to make voting easier if they didn’t spend so much time making it harder. 

Instead, Kansans receive a double portion of affront—lawmakers are not only working against the will of the people in making voting harder, but they insult the public with vapid rhetoric while discussing their true plans behind closed doors. 

And now, after years of conniving, they have passed the bill and maintain the party numbers to override a possible Governor Laura Kelly veto. 

I often wonder if others feel as out-of-place in the current zeitgeist as I do. We sit at the pinnacle of human achievement, armed with previously-unfathomable knowledge and technology, and constantly debate how poorly we can do things. 

If we looked at the bounty of opportunity to make voting easier, we could do something truly impressive. Federal law affords tremendous opportunity to ensure every eligible voice is heard.  Instead, we allow lawmakers to scheme and consolidate power, which is neither helpful nor impressive. 

This year we fell into the same tired routine of anti-civil liberties legislation: asked our lawmakers not to pass this bill,,contacted Governor Kelly to veto the bill, and now, we will urge lawmakers to sustain her veto and vote against an override, praying enough of them listen.

But I yearn for the day when we’re no longer mired by disingenuousness -- where we don’t propose ways to limit citizens’ voices while pretending we’re helping them, but instead actualize sincere plans to make sure they’re heard; where we don’t squabble over how to do the least possible, but rather survey the ways we can accomplish all that is possible for us. 

I hope you’ll join me in doing everything we can to stop this insincere and harmful bill from becoming law. And I believe that when enough Kansans make our voices heard, our task will no longer be to simply impede these sinister ploys, but to implement productive plans to be the best that we can be; go to the stars, if you will.