TOPEKA — Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab has invalidated efforts by the No Labels party to place two candidates on the November ballot, easing — at least temporarily — anxiety over the party’s nonconsensual nomination of incumbent Democratic state Sen. Marci Francisco.
GOP operative Kris Van Meteren, who owns the political consulting group Singularis and incorporated No Labels Kansas, challenged Schwab or Attorney General Kris Kobach to explain the decision in an angry email shared with news reporters.
Schwab’s explanation relied on state law that requires nominations to be made by a party’s chairperson. Van Meteren made the nominations himself, shortly before the noon Monday filing deadline. Van Meteren identifies himself as the party’s chairman, but Schwab said the position is actually held by Glenda Reynolds.
No Labels and United Kansas are new parties engaged with the concept of fusion voting. The idea is to identify a candidate, Democrat or Republican, who is already on the ballot and appears to be the most moderate of the bunch. The candidate’s name would then appear twice on the ballot — once under the candidate’s party of choice, and again under the new party. The votes would then be combined.
The Secretary of State’s Office maintains the practice is illegal and planned to remove duplicate names before printing the November ballots. That could prompt a legal battle over the legitimacy of fusion voting.
But Van Meteren’s attempt to nominate Francisco and his wife, Republican Echo Van Meteren, in state senate races raises other concerns.
If Francisco were to lose her primary race against Rep. Christina Haswood, who has the support of former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, Francisco and Haswood’s names would both be on the November ballot. In this hypothetical scenario, they could split the Democratic vote and allow David Miller, a former chairman of the Kansas Republican Party who filed as the GOP candidate shortly before the deadline, to steal a reliably Democratic seat.
Whitney Tempel, a spokeswoman for Schwab’s office, said state law is unclear on whether a candidate in Francisco’s situation could refuse a party’s nomination.
Sen. Marci Francisco, D-Lawrence, talks to advocates for reproductive health care rights during a bodily autonomy lobbying event March 5, 2024, at the Statehouse in Topeka
Sen. Marci Francisco, D-Lawrence, talks to advocates for reproductive health care rights during a bodily autonomy lobbying event March 5, 2024, at the Statehouse in Topeka. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
The scenario may be far-fetched. But the No Labels nomination of Francisco, who has represented Lawrence in the Senate for 20 years, bothered Democrats who sensed foul play.
“I’m concerned that the threat of a three-way race will hand this district — which Gov. Kelly has overwhelmingly won twice over — to Republican extremists in November, which is exactly why the No Labels party is playing this game,” Haswood said.
Francisco said she had no contact with Van Meteren before he filed the paperwork Monday that identified her as the No Labels candidate. She questioned whether his signature on the paperwork amounted to an administrative error or actual voter fraud, and she asked authorities to investigate.
“I wonder if it could have made some voters question my intention and my interest in running as a Democrat, and so I tried to be very clear that I had nothing to do with this,” she said.
The nomination of Echo Van Meteren could also be viewed as a workaround to the state’s “sore loser” law, which prevents candidates who lose a primary race to file as independents. If she failed to win the GOP nomination in August, the No Labels nomination could conceivably give her a second opportunity in November.
