Kansas Secretary of State: Voters should have plan if using mail ballots in general election

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab said Friday that voters who cast their ballot by mail in next month’s general election should have a plan to make sure it gets back to their county’s election office.

For the last several weeks, Schwab has been communicating with United States Postal Service Postmaster General Louis DeJoy about concerns about mail-in ballots.

Following the Kansas primary election in August, Schwab learned that as many as 1,000 voters were disenfranchised because the USPS failed to handle the mail ballots properly.

Schwab wrote to DeJoy in early September about the issue.

Later last month, he saidhe was disappointed with the generic response from USPS and DeJoy.

On Friday, Schwab said he has since spoken to DeJoy over the primary election failure, noting the conversation was “productive.”

“He reassured me that the USPS will implement new measures to prevent similar issues in the upcoming general election and acknowledged past errors in processing primary ballots,” Schwab said Friday in a news release.

Nonetheless, Schwab encouraged voters who are casting a mail ballot to know of all the ways they can return the ballot besides mailing it back in.

“That is why we are encouraging voters who vote by mail to use a more secure way of returning your ballot to the county election office, if possible,” Schwab said.

Those options include dropping it off at their county’s election office, any advance voting location in their county, any polling location in their county on election day, or a county-owned drop box.

—