Advance Ballot Shenanigans

By: Charlotte O’Hara, Johnson County 3rd District Commissioner

This does not reflect the majority viewpoint of the JoCo BOCC

Well, well, well, fun and games in our election process. If you remember our Election

Commissioner sent 417,000 prefilled advance ballot applications in the 2023 election at a cost of $131,055.66 with YOUR TAX DOLLARS. Our Election Commissioner was soundly reprimanded by our Secretary of State and told he was not authorized to send out unsolicited applications for an advance ballot.

Now The Center for Voter Information (CVI), a third-party NGO (nonprofit organization) located in Washington, DC, has sent out approximately 43,000 non- solicited advance ballot applications. The return envelope they sent with the application has THE WRONG RETURN ADDRESS to the JoCo Election Office,
which is in violation of our state statutes.

Certainly, this UNDERMINES efforts to reassure voters that our elections are secure. What a Mess!!

Our county staff sent the BOCC the following email explaining to us the actions of this non-profit (CVI), with no mention that their actions violated state statutes. I don’t know how county staff knew the number of applications that were sent.

The email read:

Again, there was no mention that the wrong address on the return envelope is a violation of Kansas State Statute.

According to my research, CVI has a long rap sheet of complaints from state and local officials in many states which have requested them to stop this practice of sending out advance ballot Applications. From a public watchdog, Influence Watch, “CVI sent out 2.3Mill mailers in Florida. Local offices were so overwhelmed with complaints that numerous officials emailed CVI asking them to cease their activities.”

In addition, from Influence Watch:

“In 2019 Vox reported on leaked memos from Mind the Gap, a
California super PAC, which advises wealthy donors on cost-effective
methods for supporting the Democratic party. The memos revealed that
Mind the Gap was recommending CVI and its affiliate, the Voter Participation
Center (VPC), as primary funding targets for benefiting the Democratic party
during the 2020 election, despite the fact that CVI and VPC are supposed
to be nonpartisan.”

My question is, do we need legislation to stop this type of activity?

How can the Secretary of State tell our Election Commissioner not to send out unsolicited advanced ballot applications, yet a third-party organization from Washington DC is free to do the same thing?

I guess, the deep state has arrived in JoCo?