Early voting on hold in western Kansas county after ballots improperly labeled

Ellis County suspended in-person absentee voting for three days because a printing error on ballots erroneously listed the Kansas 40th Senate District race as a U.S. Senate race. The actual U.S. Senate contest between Roger Marshall and Barbara Bollier was properly labeled.

Advance ballots with the mistake were also mailed to 3,881 voters in the western Kansas county, according to the Kansas Secretary of State Office.

County Clerk Donna Maskus said she learned of the error midday Friday. Reprinted ballots arrived in the office on Wednesday and early voting with extended hours will kick off at 7 a.m. Thursday, she said.

In-person absentee voting was supposed to start on Monday, but Maskus said she decided to suspend it after consulting legal counsel.

“The voters have really been good about accepting that they have to come back to vote, because we had lines of people in on Monday,” Maskus said.

She could not provide an estimate of how many voters were turned away from the polls.

Maskus said only mail-in voters who request a new ballot will be sent one.

“The ballots that went out with the wrong wordage, those still are going to be able to be processed,” she said. “There’s no change to the ovals or the names or anything.”

40th District incumbent Sen. Rick Billinger, a Republican from Goodland, called the incorrect wording was an “honest mistake” and said he trusted the clerk’s handling of it.

Democratic challenger Larry Dreiling, a retired reporter and TV anchor from Hays, was less forgiving.

“The reporter in me asks, is this corruption? Is this just plain stupid incompetence?” he said.

“This is bigger than just me. This could possibly impact Dr. Bollier’s race and the whole integrity of the process here in the county.”

Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab told reporters Tuesday that a legal challenge will likely come into play only if the margin of victory in the 40th District race is close to 4,000 votes.

“We’re probably going to have 40,000 votes here,” Dreiling said. “If I’m blown out by 30,000 votes and I get wiped out three-to-one, you know, I’m not going to argue that.

“If it’s worth fighting for it, we’ll fight for it.”

Billinger defeated Democrat Alex Herman by more than 15,000 votes in 2016.

This story was originally published October 21, 2020 at 1:39 PM with the headline "Early voting on hold in western Kansas county after ballots improperly labeled."