Legislature Overrides Veto on Advance Ballots

By Sherman Smith, Kansas Reflector

TOPEKA — The House and Senate on Tuesday overrode Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto of legislation that could result in thousands of advance ballots being disqualified.

Senate Bill 4 moves the deadline for counting mail-in ballots to 7 p.m. on Election Day. From 2018 to 2024, the law allowed ballots to be counted if they were postmarked by Election Day and received by the following Friday.

Kelly, a Democrat, had vetoed the bill Monday over concerns that the new law would disenfranchise voters. The Secretary of State’s Office earlier this year provided written testimony that showed more than 2,000 ballots from the November 2024 election would have been disqualified by getting rid of the three-day grace period.

But Republicans embraced talking points associated with lies about the 2020 presidential election, when ballots that were counted after Election Day gave Joe Biden and edge over Donald Trump.

House Republican leadership in a joint statement said the governor’s “misguided veto was a slight to voter confidence.”

“Kansas voters — whether in rural communities or urban centers — deserve an election system that is transparent, fair, and trusted,” the statement said. “This override reflects House Republicans’ commitment to ensuring all Kansans’ votes will be counted.”

The override of a veto requires support from two-thirds of the members of both chambers — 27 out of 40 in the Senate and 84 out of 125 in the House.

The Senate overrode the veto by a 30-10 vote that matched the total earlier this month when the Senate passed the bill. Sen. Brenda Dietrich, a Topeka Republican, joined the chamber’s nine Democrats in opposition.

The House completed the override with an 84-41 vote, with three Republicans opposed: Rep. Jesse Borjon of Topeka, Rep. Ken Collins of Mulberry and Rep. Laura Williams, of Lenexa.

One Republican, Rep. Angel Roeser of Manhattan, flipped her vote from earlier in the month to support the override.

House Minority Leader Brandon Woodard, a Lenexa Democrat, said the legislation would harm seniors, college students and rural Kansans.

“Senate Bill 4 directly undermines the integrity of our elections and disenfranchises those who are most vulnerable,” Woodard said in a statement. “House Democrats will never support these types of partisan Republican efforts that deliberately make it harder for Kansans to vote.”