Wyandotte County mail ballots printed with wrong address, returned to voters after they sent them in

Members of the Kansas Democratic Party submitted records requests for ballot information after finding out about the wrongly addressed ballots in the diverse county, which encompasses the northern half of the Kansas City metro on the Kansas side.

“Not only is this neglectful and an abdication of their duty, but the extra effort and uncertainty rings of the poll taxes of the past. Wyandotte county has the highest concentration of Black and brown voters in the state,” said Kansas Democratic Party chair Jeanna Repass. “As the daughter of a civil rights leader, I find it wholly unacceptable that any Kansan be denied their right to vote or made to go through additional hoops just because of their county or ZIP code.”

As of Friday, 10 voters had called the election office because their ballots had been returned in the mail, said Wyandotte County election commissioner Michael Abbott. He said 1,408 ballots have been received by the election office of the 2,975 issued.

Abbott said he takes full responsibility for changing the office’s P.O. box address, and said the issue has been resolved with the post office. 

“We have our physical address and P.O. box on the return envelope,” Abbott said. “We had reports some of the ballots were sent back. The post office has changed their process and I have not heard of any issues since. We are receiving mail ballots by mail regularly.”

A spokesperson for the U.S. Postal Service in Kansas didn’t respond to an email sent late Friday afternoon requesting comment.

U.S. Postal Service workers and the Wyandotte County Election Office became aware of the situation earlier this week after social media posts circulated of voters’ ballots marked as returned to sender, as well as voters who called the election office throughout the week, said Kansas Democratic Party political director Alex Fall.

U.S. Senate candidate Erik Murray held a news conference Friday outside the election office, where he encouraged voters to drop off mail-in ballots in person.

Murray said the roughly 1,500 ballots that have yet to be returned are either already in the mail on the way to the election office, on their way back to voters after being mailed to the wrong address, or are yet to be filled out. 

“This is a human error,” Murray said. “We want to build that trust in Wyandotte County voters, and so it is unfortunate that we’re dealing with an issue as simple as a mailing address error out of our election office.”

Jake Miller, voter protection director for the Kansas Democratic Party, said there is no way of telling how many ballots are going to be returned to voters versus how many are on the way to the election office.

“It is very heartening that we have 1,400 ballots back with this issue, and only 10 or 12 that have reached out to the election office to say that this has happened,” Miller said.

The Kansas Democratic Party put out a statement Friday evening calling upon the election office to share how they will fix the situation and provide guidance, direction, and support to all voters to ensure their ballots are counted.

The Secretary of State’s Office and Wyandotte County GOP did not respond to requests to comment sent via email Friday evening.