Kansas election day drama: Polling station pauses 1 hour after opening; woman charged with stealing Republican mail 

On election day in Kansas, a polling station ran out of paper ballots an hour after opening, and a Kansas woman was accused of stealing hundreds of pieces of political mail from Republicans.

Democrats swept the midterm elections in the Sunflower State, pulling ahead in the races for attorney general and governor and flipping a U.S. Senate seat for the first time in decades.

State law calls for close election results decided by a margin of 1% or less to be audited and recounted by hand. The following Kansas races will be audited and are currently considered too close to call by election officials:

• Governor

• Kansas secretary of state

• Attorney general

• Kansas House of Representatives District 27

• Kansas House of Representatives District 40

• Kansas House of Representatives District 117

Polling place receives 10% of needed ballots

The Linwood Community Building in Leavenworth County, Kansas, received a mere 100 paper ballots from the county elections office instead of the 1,000 it needed, running out of ballots at 8 a.m., just one hour after it opened. 

“That is the only significant problem that we’ve seen across the state,” Bryan Caskey, state election director for the Kansas secretary of state, said at a press briefing Tuesday.

The ballot shortage was caused by a county clerk error, Caskey said, adding that dozens of voters were turned away, but not hundreds. Some stayed in line during the 1.5 hours it took for more ballots to be delivered, while others left.

Polling station hours were not extended as a result of the issue, Caskey said. He noted that the state experienced the highest amount of in-person early voting outside a presidential election year.

Several counties in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Georgia and other states also experienced election-day issues and delays. The Department of Justice deployed roughly 1,000 election monitors across the 50 states to ensure election integrity and fairness.

Social media comments criticized the Kansas ballot shortage.

“They spent years calling voter ID suppression,” one person commented on a social media post about the debacle. “Then a Kansas polling place ran out of ballots and sent voters home. That’s what suppression actually looks like.”

“Always an error, power outage, pipes bursting, ballot shortages, etc. on election day,” another person posted. “Never a problem in the 3 months of early voting.”

Kansas woman accused of stealing Republican mail

Also in Kansas on election day, a postal worker was charged with stealing thousands of pieces of mail and hiding them in her garage, according to a press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Kansas.

Kelly R. Cram, 59, of Baxter Springs, Kansas, was indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury in Wichita for the alleged theft. Cram allegedly started stealing mail in October and took 4,404 pieces in total that were supposed to be delivered to customers in the Pittsburg, Kansas, area.

The thousands of pieces of mail included almost 400 political pieces belonging to the Republican Party or affiliated committees. Agents didn’t find stolen mail related to any other political party.

“I ask for a ballot few weeks ago, But I never received one. I guess that answers why,” one person commented on the U.S. Department of Justice’s post about Cram’s indictment.

Cram has been charged with one count of unlawful secretion, destruction and delay of mail.

Several people have questioned why Cram isn’t being charged more severely.

“Why is it not one charge count for each piece of mail?” one person asked on the DOJ’s X post.

“Throw the book at these people,” another said. “If Democrats in power keep cheating and getting away with it, everyone will think they can.”

“Gonna be real with you, you wanna stop this?” a third asked. “Charge with treason. Make them pay.”