Senator Mitch Holmes wins a prize for the most deceptive bill name and press release for his bill that would in part move local and school board elections to November and make them partisan. The “Help Kansas Vote Act” is about introducing partisanship into local elections. While he says it’s about local control, local municipalities and school boards are against this move, but are being ignored. Several of the nonpartisan bodies who testified during the interim hearings on this issue warned of the dangers of consolidating local elections with larger federal and statewide elections. The teachers unions are not the main opponents to moving elections. We are concerned with people not educating themselves about school board elections who show up to vote on a statewide or federal race and don’t even realize they’re voting for a school board member. Making people declare party affiliation for school board races is not “Truth in Advertising”; it’s injecting partisanship where it doesn’t belong. Many people who currently run for school boards are not “political”. They are citizens who want to help their communities, and forcing them into a partisan, political fight will discourage these people from running. Federal employees in the executive branch or military are prohibited from running in partisan races. They would no longer be allowed to run for school board seats. This bill is also designed to dovetail with Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s proposal to reinstitute straight ticket balloting by party affiliation. My, what a tangled web we weave.
This bill has a hearing set for Wednesday in the Senate Ethics and Elections Committee (We note the inclusion of “ethics” along with “elections” in the committee name.) Here’s the press release.
For more information, contact:
Sen. Mitch Holmes, 785-296-7667
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
February 5, 2015
SENATE INTRODUCES THE HELP KANSAS VOTE ACT
TOPEKA – Today, Senator Mitch Holmes (R-St John) announced the Help Kansas Vote Act. The chairman of the Senate Committee on Ethics and Elections indicated he would introduce the bill in committee on Thursday.
Holmes stated, “Our state’s constitution specifies local control for our cities and school districts. Unfortunately, not enough citizens from our communities participate in voting for these local taxing authorities. As a result, only a handful of voters are truly represented by these governing bodies.”
The issue of election timing has been hotly debated multiple times in recent legislative sessions. Because of this, Senator Holmes conducted extensive interim hearings to study factual, statistical information that is available from organizations that specialize in collecting and presenting data for policy makers without advocating for positions.
The committee heard from non-partisan organizations such as National Conference of State Legislators (NCSL) and the Democracy Project of the Bipartisan Policy Center. Several organizations cited various polling data showing a vast majority of voters of all political flavors prefer uniform election dates.
The study committee also heard from experts on timing and turnout issues, Kansas county clerks, and county clerks from states that already have uniform election dates. All evidence shows the best way to get greater voter turnout is by having uniform election dates in November. The committee studied not only turnout issues, but administrative concerns of election officials and possible technology solutions.
The Help Kansas Vote Act attempts to address every legitimate administrative concern expressed by county election officials and groups opposing changes to the status quo.
“We’ve tried to alleviate technical concerns that were expressed, and believe we’ve successfully done so. Unfortunately, not all opposition has been based on technical concerns. Changing election timing will necessitate candidates for a school board or city council to work harder campaigning to the general public. Also, the teachers’ unions do not want to give up the majority they currently enjoy in low turnout, off-cycle elections. But this act is not about protecting incumbency or special interest groups, it is about giving community members representation in local issues,” Holmes quipped.
The Help Kansas Vote Act is designed to get more people heard in local elections by fostering a culture of voting every November, providing more voter education, encouraging young people to participate, and improving the voting experience for both the voters and the county clerks. Major features of the act will:
• Provide uniform election dates every year
• Provide county clerks tools for reducing ballot length and ballot styles, and to shorten the time it takes to vote for some individuals
• Create poll-worker positions for 16-17 year old students with letter of recommendation from school official
• Require public schools to provide facilities for polling on request of the county clerk
• Requires additional voter education and advance sample ballots of the Secretary of State
• In the spirit of “Truth in Advertising”, candidates for offices with major taxing authority will declare party affiliation
The Help Kansas Vote Act will provide greater representation on local governments for their respective communities, and will improve the voting experience.
###