Kansas will have one of the shortest mail-in voting periods in the country starting next year.
After trying for several years in a row, Republicans in the Kansas Legislature repealed a law that gives mail ballots three days after Election Day to arrive and be counted. Starting in 2026, all ballots must be returned by 7 p.m. on Election Day to be counted.
The change to state law comes before the 2026 primary and general elections, when Kansans will vote on a new governor, U.S. House seats, and state and local races.
Mail ballots in Kansas are sent out 20 days before the election, or 45 days for overseas military members. The Associated Press reports that’s one of the shortest mail voting periods of any state, along with Iowa.
Republicans argue removing the three-day grace period will make voters more confident in election results.
“By eliminating the grace period, we’re just ensuring that we have a uniform end to the election at 7 p.m., and then the counting can begin,” said Republican Sen. Mike Thompson of Johnson County, who carried the bill in the Senate.
Democrats and voter advocacy groups, on the other hand, argue it will disenfranchise voters — particularly seniors, rural voters and those who live out of state for college.
“We talk about how college students are leaving (Kansas),” said Democratic Rep. Stephanie Sawyer Clayton of Overland Park. “This is one of the reasons why: because we don’t respect them.”
The effort had been repeatedly vetoed by Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly in previous sessions. But with Republicans picking up seats in the Legislature during the November election, they had the votes to reach a two-thirds majority in both chambers and override Kelly’s veto this time around.
Kansas lawmakers enacted the so-called “three-day grace period” in 2017, out of concern that postal delivery had become too slow. It was the result of a bipartisan push to give rural Kansans and out-of-state students more time to return their ballots by mail.
But now, some Republicans argue the grace period actually leads to votes getting thrown out. They say hundreds of ballots that arrive during the grace period are not counted because they’re not properly postmarked by Election Day.
“We owe it to Kansans to be able to ensure them that their vote’s going to be counted,” said Republican Rep. Pat Proctor of Leavenworth. “And right now, with the three-day grace period, there’s a one-in-three chance that if their ballot shows up in that three-day grace period, it’s going to be counted.”
But data from state election officials shows the portion of ballots that get counted after arriving in the grace period is much higher than one-third.
The Kansas Secretary of State’s Office reports the state received about 2,800 mail ballots after Election Day during the November 2024 election. The majority – about 2,100 – were counted. About 600 were not counted, and about 100 arrived without a postmark. Those 700 ballots represent about 0.05% of all the votes cast in Kansas, and about a quarter of those that arrived after Election Day.
Deputy Secretary of State Clay Barker said it’s a fallacy to assert that mail ballots arriving during the three-day grace period are flipping results after election night.
“The reality is that most of the votes added to the election count after the unofficial election night results are from ballots that arrived on or before Election Day,” Barker said in written testimony.
Loud Light, a left-leaning voter advocacy group in Kansas, says the change will suppress votes. They argue Republicans are concealing their true intentions behind eliminating the grace period.
In a video from a private zoom meeting published by Loud Light, Proctor, who carried the bill in the House, can be heard expressing intent to eliminate nearly all voting by mail.
“If it was up to me, Election Day would be Election Day,” he said. “There wouldn’t be early voting – mail-in ballots would only be for military or severely disabled.
“But I’ve got to bring 84 people with me, so I’m trying to chip away at it.”
Proctor told the Kansas News Service in February that he would not try to eliminate voting by mail.
Daniel Caudill reports on the Kansas Statehouse and government for Kansas Public Radio and the Kansas News Service. You can email him at dcaudill@ku.edu.
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