Court: Kansas Can Stop Third Parties From Sending Voters Pre-Filled Mail-In Ballot Forms:
In a win for election integrity, a federal appellate court upheld on Wednesday a Kansas law prohibiting third-party groups from sending voters pre-filled absentee ballot applications.
“Kansas acted after error-filled, prefilled mail-ballot applications flooded voters and overwhelmed county election officials in 2020. Protecting voters from confusion and keeping elections orderly is commonsense, not suspect,” said Honest Elections Project Executive Director Jason Snead, whose group filed a brief supporting the Sunflower State in the case.
In its unanimous ruling, the three-judge panel for the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals found that the Kansas law barring “private parties from partially prefilling applications for mail ballots before those applications are sent to registered voters” passes legal muster. The panel was comprised of Judges Timothy Tymkovich (Bush 43 appointee), Joel Carson (Trump appointee), and Senior Judge Michael Murphy (Clinton appointee).
The GOP-controlled Kansas Legislature passed the contested law in 2021, negating the veto of Democrat Gov. Laura Kelly. Two left-wing organizations — VoteAmerica and the Voter Participation Center (VPC) — subsequently filed a federal lawsuit alleging that the statute’s provisions violated the First and 14th Amendments.
Senior District Judge Kathryn Vratil, a Bush 41 appointee, initially granted a temporary injunction blocking the law from taking effect that same year. She later issued a complete decision in 2023, in which she agreed with the left-wing groups that the law’s restrictions unlawfully “chilled” their speech under the First Amendment.
The 10th Circuit reversed Vratil’s decision and, upon remand, instructed her to use a lower form of scrutiny to assess the law unless she found that the legislature had “enacted it with improper motives.” The Bush 41 appointee said she found such motives, prompting the state to once again appeal to the 10th Circuit for relief.
Writing for the majority in Wednesday’s decision, Tymkovich ruled that Vratil “found an improper purpose without evidence from the prohibition’s justifications, text, or legislative history,” and “instead inferred an improper purpose from the national political debate on mail-in voting.” “That finding,” he said, “was in error.” --->READ MORE HERE
Court Upholds Kansas Ban on Prefilled Ballot Applications:
The law was passed to prevent voter confusion.
Kansas can prohibit third parties from prefilling portions of absentee ballot applications, a federal appeals court ruled on Oct. 14.
“Because the Prohibition was enacted without an improper purpose, we apply intermediate scrutiny and find the Prohibition constitutional,” Circuit Judge Timothy Tymkovich wrote for a unanimous panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit.
Kansas lawmakers approved the law containing the prohibition in 2021, overriding the state governor’s veto. Officials said the law was aimed at reducing voter confusion and reducing the workload for election offices.
Under the law, organizations and individuals sending absentee ballot applications cannot complete any portion of the applications before mailing them to voters.
Several organizations sued, alleging the law illegally chilled their political speech and activity.
They wrote in a 2021 complaint that the law “prohibits Plaintiffs from employing their most effective means of persuading voters to engage in the democratic process: mailing advance mail ballot applications to registered Kansas voters, complete with a pre-addressed return envelope, and personalizing those applications by prefilling the individual’s name and address information.”
U.S. District Judge Kathryn Vratil blocked the provision, concluding the organizations were likely to succeed in their case. She applied the test of strict scrutiny, the most stringent analysis, which required officials to show the restrictions were narrowly tailored to serve a compelling state interest, and said they did not. ---READ MORE HERE
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