A House committee has scheduled a hearing Thursday on a bill that would allow Sedgwick County to establish vote centers for the 2020 elections, allowing voters to cast a ballot at any location on election day.

Sedgwick County election commissioner Tabitha Lehman told county commissioners Wednesday that she would have to speak against the bill, because of new procedures that have just been announced by the Kansas secretary of state’s office.   Lehman said the changes will have a significant impact on day-to-day operations in her office, because it creates a separate, locked-down system for access to a statewide voter registration database.

Lawmakers approved a bill last year to allow for voting at any location, but secretary of state Scott Schwab said his office will be unable to make that happen in 2020 because of the changes in procedures and systems that will be required.   The bill under consideration in the House this year would allow Sedgwick County to move ahead with the process.

Lehman said this is something her office wants to do, but there are a lot of moving parts and this will be a significant amount of work to absorb in a Presidential election year.  She said a system with vote centers hasn’t been tested and there’s no provision in the House bill to step back if testing doesn’t go well.   She wants to make sure the 2020 elections go flawlessly.

County commissioner Jim Howell says the county has the systems in place and it should be able to move ahead with vote centers.  He proposed a change in language for the House bill to give the county the option of going forward or not.   That change was rejected by a 2-3 vote of the commission, with only Howell and commissioner David Dennis voting in favor.