Sedgwick County’s top election official resigns. Schwab blames lack of funding, hostility

The state-appointed election commissioner for Sedgwick County has resigned after 16 months, Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab announced Friday.

Angela Caudillo, a former operations manager for Sedgwick County Comcare, replaced former Election Commissioner Tabitha Lehman in July last year after Schwab removed Lehman from her position.

Caudillo, in her resignation letter, said she enjoys “many aspects of the job” but “unforeseen personal reasons have brought me to this difficult decision.”

Schwab, in a news release, praised Caudillo and criticized the level of financial support given to her office by the Sedgwick County Commission.

“Angela led the Election Office through challenging times, often with limited resources and funding from the county commission,” Schwab said in a news release. “When resources and needs are not met, and the political environment toward election officials is hostile, we lose talent. It is hard to see a good public servant leave.”

Sedgwick County defended the funding it has provided the Election Office. Commissioners approved an additional $819,000 in 2022 for software updates and hardware, a postcard mailer and payroll to supplement the office’s original $1.7 million budget.

“The Sedgwick County Commission has consistently supported the Elections Office and in 2021 when Election Commissioner Caudillo was appointed, the County Commission continued that support with ongoing financial and organizational resources,” Nicole Gibbs, a Sedgwick County spokesperson, said in a written statement.

County commissioners used to be required to approve funding for any budget amount needed by the Election Commissioner to run elections.

Commissioner Jim Howell said Schwab’s statement on Caudillo’s resignation “doesn’t make sense” because, as a state representative, Schwab voted to change the law to give commissioners more budget authority over election offices.

“I’m surprised that Scott Schwab said what he said,” Howell said. “I think he’s stirring up some controversy that I don’t think she’s stirring up at all.”

The Sedgwick County Commission rejected budget requests from Caudillo that would have increased pay for poll workers, paid for sending mail-ballot applications to registered voters (as it has done since 2008) and added full-time staff in the election office.

Howell said he and other commissioners didn’t think those requests were necessary.

“We have added significant funds to this budget since this has moved over (under the county commission’s control), and apparently it wasn’t enough to avoid criticism from the secretary of state,” Howell said.

Schwab and Sedgwick County Commissioners have clashed in recent years over his decision to fire Lehman after the 2020 election because she chose to work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic while she underwent cancer treatment after Schwab told her she could not do so.

Caudillo ran elections in the fall of 2021 and throughout 2022. Her biggest test came in the August primary.

Before the election began, Sedgwick County made headlines when the election office misspelled multiple words within the abortion amendment question on ballots, including the word “pregnancy.” Caudillo also came under fire from election deniers who wanted her to remove ballot drop boxes from Sedgwick County.

On Election Day, staffing shortages caused long wait times for a vote on a constitutional amendment that sought to remove abortion rights from the Kansas Constitution and some voters were turned away from a Maize polling site.

After the amendment failed, former Sedgwick County Republican Party chairman and Wichita anti-abortion activist Mark Gietzen and Colby resident and election denier Melissa Leavitt paid for a hand recount in Sedgwick and eight other counties.

Caudillo successfully oversaw the recount, but complaints by anti-abortion extremists continued.

“As far as I’m concerned, she has done a good job,” Howell said of Caudillo. “I mean, she hasn’t been without mistakes, but it’s a complicated job. And it’s hard to learn these things, and you learn them and go on. Everyone makes mistakes, but overall, I think she did a good job.”

This story was originally published December 2, 2022 at 1:24 PM.