Local election officials lack accountability

Good for Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, D-Topeka, for championing an effort to make election commissioners accountable to citizens in the state’s most populous counties.

In 101 counties in Kansas, running elections is among the duties of elected county clerks. But in Johnson, Sedgwick, Wyandotte and Shawnee counties, the secretary of state decides who oversees local elections, even though local county officials fund the election office’s budget.

Hensley wants to change Kansas law so that county commissioners pick the election commissioner in those four counties.

“That is a Republican idea of government,” he said on the Senate floor Tuesday.

Hensley has called for such a change before. This latest push came after the Shawnee County election commissioner, Andrew Howell, overspent his budget last year by $85,000. When the Shawnee County Commission responded earlier this month by cutting his salary by 15 percent, Howell argued that he isn’t accountable to the commission and can certify his own budget, the Topeka Capital-Journal reported.

The Johnson County Commission also had budget grievances. It discovered last year that its former election commissioner spent extravagantly on travel and office purchases.

Sedgwick County has had different concerns with its appointed election commissioner, Tabitha Lehman, including her use of family and friends to help her run elections and the office’s computer glitches and late election results in 2012. But locals had no say in her hiring or whether she kept her job.

Hensley agreed to withdraw his amendment Tuesday after a committee chairwoman promised to take up the issue next session. He and other lawmakers need to make sure that happens.

This story was originally published March 30, 2017 at 5:04 AM with the headline "Local election officials lack accountability."