Schwab: Kansas will be election meddling target

With an open U.S. Senate seat on the ballot, Kansas will be a target of election meddling in 2020.
That was the message delivered by Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab during his presentation to the Concordia Rotary Club Thursday at the Nazareth Motherhouse.
Senator Pat Roberts will be retiring, and a number of high profile Republicans, including former Secretary of State Kris Kobach, are bidding to fill the seat, along with a pair of Democrats.
“Yes, Kansas is a target, and Kansas is going to be a really big target because we have an open U.S. Senate seat,” Schwab said.
Schwab, who was elected to replace Kobach in 2018 after representing the 49th District in the Kansas House of Representatives, said the world of elections has drastically changed.
“We are now in a world where I am the first Secretary of State in state history to have Homeland Security clearance.
“I get briefings from Homeland Security simply because there is this weaponization of elections,”Schwab said.
Schwab said that anyone hearing that election systems have been hacked, it is not true.
“Our voting machines are never connected to a network,” Schwab said, “So you don’t have to worry about someone from a foreign nation or college campus hacking that machine.”
Schwab said the vote of the 2016 election and the count was what it was.
“No, Russia did not change any votes,” Schwab said.
Schwab said what Russia did in 2016 was use fake Facebook posts to create chaos.
“Which is what foreign nationals like North Korea and Iran want with the United States,” Schwab said.
The Kansas Secretary of State’s office will launch a large campaign in 2020 emphasizing that if you don’t know where it came from, don’t share it.
“We are taking this next election very seriously to help out county clerks,” Schwab said, “Because people are going to blame county clerks saying they are doing something nefarious.”
Schwab took the opportunity to advocate for the passage of a state constitutional amendment on the ballot in November that would eliminate a provision in the Kansas Constitution requiring that the state adjust census numbers for military personnel and college students.
“What we want to do is eliminate that provision,” Schwab said, “Here is the best reason to vote for it, it saves us $835,000 from having to hire a vendor to make all of those phone calls.”
Schwab also discussed a new program that the Secretary of State's office is launching to allow new businesses to set up an account to fill out information once for all of the government entities necessary instead of filling out the information for each separate department.
The first phase of the program will launch next week.
“Other states have done things similar to this, but ours will be the most comprehensive because it will be the newest,” Schwab said.
Schwab said that he really appreciates the work done by the county clerks across the state.
“We have got 105 great county election clerks,” Schwab said.