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Minutes for HB2013 - Committee on Elections

Short Title

Requiring a runoff election between the top two candidates whenever a candidate for a statewide office fails to receive a majority of the votes cast at a general or special election.

Minutes Content for Tue, Jan 24, 2023

Chairperson Proctor opened the hearing on HB 2013 and recognized Mike Heim, Assistant Revisor, Revisor of Statutes, to deliver an overview of the bill. Revisor Heim completed the overview and answered questions from Committee members.

Elaina Rudder, Research Analyst, Legislative Research Department, spoke to the members about a memo entitled "Primary and General Election Runoffs". (Attachment 1)  There were no questions.

Chairperson Proctor welcomed Representative Les Mason, 73rd District, Kansas House of Representatives, who appeared in strong support of HB 2013.  Representative Mason stated that in the last three gubernatorial elections, a winner has been declared with the leading candidate earning less than 50% of the total vote. (Attachment 2)  Questions directed to Representative Mason were answered by him and Chairperson Proctor thanked him for his proponent testimony.

Rick Piepho, Election Committee Chair, Kansas County Clerks and Election Officials Association, was introduced to the Committee as an opponent to HB 2013.  Mr. Piepho submitted testimony on behalf of the KCCEOA membership and stated the members support maintaining the current system of electing candidates to office who receive the greatest number of votes. (Attachment 3)

Chairperson Proctor next called on Davis Hammet, Loud Light Civic Action.  Mr. Hammet opposed HB 2013 and specified that Georgia is the only state that uses a general election runoff system similar to the proposal in this bill. (Attachment 4)

Introduced next was Elaine Stephen, Rank the Vote Kansas co-leader,  who informed the Committee that there are two voting methods that ensure candidates enter office with support from at least 50% of voters: delayed runoff elections and ranked choice voting (RCV, also known as Instant Runoff Voting). (Attachment 5)

Next on the agenda was Rob Hodgkinson who spoke in opposition to this bill.  He indicated that Kansans have a much better option--using Ranked Choice Voting (RCV). (Attachment 6)

Information provided by Cille King, Advocacy Chair, League of Women Voters of Kansas, included the following statement.  "Runoff elections are costly to taxpayers, often have fewer voters show up due to political exhaustion, are overly burdensome to County Election Offices, and at least in Georgia's last two U.S. Senate runoff elections, didn't change the results from the General Election." (Attachment 7)

Introduced next was Caleb Smith, Civic Engagement Director, Kansas Appleseed Center for Law and Justice.  Mr. Smith testified in opposition to HB 2013 articulating that the bill would require a second runoff election for statewide contests where one candidate fails to receive over 50% of the total votes cast. (Attachment 8)

The Committee heard about the grave concerns Tabitha Lehman, former Sedgwick County Election Commissioner, has about this bill.  Some of the concerns she touched on were election officials who are overworked, underfunded, and underappreciated; the timing of the runoff election; reserving polling places for the "possibility" of a runoff election; post-election audits occurring during the runoff; and securely storing additional voting equipment. (Attachment 9)

Questions were directed to those who had testified in opposition to HB 2013.

Opponents who provided written-only testimony were:

Chairperson Proctor recognized Clay Barker, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, General Counsel, to provide neutral testimony on HB 2013.  He addressed several implications of the bill for the election process.  One of those implications was that HB 2013 would violate current statute requiring county election officers to provide no less than 45 days' notice for military and federal service voters to vote by mail in all state elections (K.S.A. 25-1220). (Attachment 18)

Mr. Barker answered questions posed by Committee members.

Chairperson Proctor thanked all of the conferees who provided testimony on this bill and closed the hearing on HB 2013.

The Chairperson announced that on Thursday the Committee will be hearing HB 2056 and the following week, hearing bills on ballot boxes.

The meeting adjourned at 4:43 p.m.

The next meeting of the House Elections Committee is scheduled for Thursday, January 26, 2023.