Nonprofits have flooded Kansas with mail ballot applications targeting mostly progressive voters since 2018
July 08, 2025
Progressive, lawfare attorney Marc Elias’ Democracy Docket shows a summary of this Kansas case in federal district court:
On July 3, 2025, the district court held that the law preventing third parties from mailing prefilled mail-ballot applications to registered voters is unconstitutional.
The original lawsuit was brought in 2021 by VoteAmerica and the Voter Participation Center because Kansas law tried to restrict pre-printing mail-ballot applications after massive mailings to Kansas residents by the plaintiffs in 2020 and 2018.
On Thursday US District Judge Kathryn H. Vratil ordered the second sentence of KSA 25-1122(k)(2) to be an unconstitutional infringement of freedom of speech.
Judge Vratil originally ruled in May 2023 the same law unconstitutional when she found pre-filled out mail ballot applications were “inherently expressive conduct that the First Amendment embraces.”
A week after the Nov. 2024 election the US Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit reversed Vratil’s decision and sent the matter back to her “for further proceedings under a different standard of judicial review” according to Elias’ Democracy Docket.
If Vratil’s second decision stands, nonprofits will be free to flood mailboxes in Kansas again with pre-printed mail ballot application forms that have caused problems in past years.
In Sept. 2024 the Johnson County election office had to deal with 43,441 return envelopes with wrong addressees sent by the Center for Voter Information (sister organization of Voter Participation Center) because of an error in the address in returning the mail ballot applications.
Over 1.5 million mail pieces, targeting likely progressive voters in the 2022 election by Voter Participation Center and Center for Voter Information, possibly made a difference in Gov. Laura Kelly’s win by a mere 22,258 votes.
Nonprofit Plaintiffs
The Voter Participation Center and its sister organization, Center for Voter Informationhave been targeting progressive strongholds for years: young people, people of color, and unmarried women. The nonprofit’s “nonpartisan” approach is extremely partisan.
Capital Research Center called the Voter Participation Center “a tax exempt turnout machine for Democrats.”
Influence Watch gave this characterization of VoteAmerica:
VoteAmerica is a left-of-center voter mobilization group. It hosts information on voter registration, rules for absentee ballots, dates, and other items pertaining to the voting process on its website, as well as tools for making voting by mail easier.
Related
The ruling allows groups like plaintiffs VoteAmerica and Voter Participation Center (VPC), and other interested groups, to send Kansas voters applications for mail ballots fully personalized for their signatures and return to county election offices.
The Voter Participation Center and Center for Voter Information non-profits flooded some voters with “educational” mailings in 2022
The Left’s Voting Machine: How Charities Secretly Help Win Elections, Parker Thayer, Capital Research Center, Nov. 2020.