Kansas has lost a legal fight over one of the voting laws that its Republican-led Legislature passed in the wake of the 2020 election. U.S. District Court ruling Thursday May 4th, said it was unconstitutional to make it a crime for groups to include a voter’s name, address and other information on advance ballot applications. Two National nonprofit groups, Vote America and the Voter Participation Center, sued after two voting laws were passed in 2021 over the Veto of Democratic Governor, Laura Kelly. One of them included the restriction on prefilling ballots, even if the voter provided the information and requested an advance mail ballot application.
The groups, whose mission is to promote voting among traditionally underserved groups, including young and minority voters, argued that there is a higher response rate when the group prefills the applications. Nearly 70,000 Kansas voters submitted an advance mail voting application provided by the Voter Participation Center to their county election official in the 2020 general election.
