Candidates for KS top election official debate how to respond to conspiracy theories
Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab and Democratic challenger Jeanna Repass sparred over the best response to mistrust in Kansas’ voter systems in a debate Tuesday night.
Schwab, an Olathe Republican seeking a second term, has built a reputation of forcefully rejecting unfounded claims of voter fraud and irregularities that have grown in Kansas in the wake of the 2020 election.
Even before the 2020 election Schwab pushed back on claims from then-President Donald Trump that voting by mail was insecure.
In Tuesday’s debate, hosted by KTWU in Topeka, he reiterated that argument.
“It’s easy to vote in Kansas and it’s hard to cheat the system,” he said.
But Repass, the former director of urban mission at the United Church of the Resurrection, argued there remained room for improvement. Too many Kansans, she said, did not trust the existing election system and Schwab had failed to listen to them.
“Until we get more of our electorate to believe that our elections are free and safe and fair we’ve got a problem,” said Repass, who lives in Overland Park.
Although Trump won Kansas by more than 15 points in the 2020 election, the state has become a hotbed of election conspiracies. Election offices have been flooded with lawsuits and activists have filed lawsuits and sought recounts based on unfounded claims of irregularities.
There is no evidence of widespread voter fraud or election irregularities in Kansas.
Through much of the debate Schwab and Repass returned to their argument over how to react, cutting answers to other questions short to respond to a previous jab.
Schwab acknowledged that systems can always be improved. But he said he wasn’t going to criticize state and local election workers based on conspiracies spread nationwide over YouTube.
He pointed to the recount of August’s landslide vote on abortion — which changed fewer than 70 votes, just .002% of ballots recounted — as proof that Kansas’ existing system works.
“When somebody’s lying about your election system you have a job to tell the truth and we’ve been doing that for four years,” Schwab said. “Have we listened? Absolutely. But we’ve also refuted it.”
“I’m not going to make them feel good by saying I believe your lie.”
Repass said she believed the 2020 elections were safe and secure, but also said “there were several protocols where we missed some steps.” Schwab’s approach to election denialism, she said, would not succeed in convincing people to trust the system.
“There are people who don’t believe in our process, whether they saw a YouTube video or whether they read something online it is our responsibility to reinstill that in them,” Repass said.
“Dismissing them, being flippant about it, is not going to get us where we need to go.”
This story was originally published November 1, 2022 at 9:01 PM with the headline "Candidates for KS top election official debate how to respond to conspiracy theories."
