In the four days before a Kansas primary election, voters in Wyandotte County have been walking out to their mailboxes and finding their own votes waiting there. Sealed, uncounted, and sent back.
The envelopes are stamped undeliverable. They are marked official election mail and official ballot, do not delay. Some of them were mailed two weeks ago. They traveled out of the neighborhood, through a sorting facility, and back to the same front porch, carrying a vote that no one at the election office ever saw.
The return envelope the county mailed to advance voters carries two addresses, the election office at 850 State Avenue and a post office box that the county says it used to maintain and that postal workers are no longer supposed to attempt delivery to. Kansas makes voters buy their own stamp to mail a ballot home.
So people in Wyandotte County paid postage out of pocket to send their votes to a box the post office does not serve.
Wyandotte County is where Kansas concentrated its Black and brown population and then built a county line around it. By the 2020 Census the county is 33 percent Latino and 20 percent Black, a combined majority of 53 percent, in a state that is 72 percent white. Of Kansas’s one hundred five counties, only two have a smaller share of white residents.
No one will say how many votes it hit.
Election Commissioner Michael Abbott told Fox4 he received reports that some ballots were sent back, that the post office has changed its process, and that he has not heard of any issues since. He said mail ballots are arriving at his office regularly. He did not say how many came back. He did not say how many voters his office has contacted, or by what method, or when he learned the box had stopped working. Because the post office box is printed on the envelope rather than on some subset of them, the exposure runs county-wide while the confirmed harm stays unknown.
Kansas Democratic Party chair Jeanna Repass told Fox4 that her office started getting reports in the past week and that the scope cannot be determined from outside for exactly that reason.
Repass also named that the party has been telling people to take their ballots to a drop box. Her concern is the voters who cannot.
That is the arithmetic underneath this.
Whatever put a dead post office box on an envelope, the people a mail failure hits hardest are the people least able to absorb it. The voter without a car. The voter working a double. The elder who applied to vote by mail in the first place because getting to a drop box is not something her body will do anymore.
Wyandotte County is being told to solve a government error with a car ride, in a county where a great many people do not have the car.
What to do with your ballot, starting today
If your ballot came back to you. It is still valid. A returned ballot is not a spoiled ballot. Do not open the sealed return envelope and do not start over. Confirm you signed the back, then hand-deliver it. Any of the four drop boxes will take it, the election office at 850 State Avenue will take it during business hours, and any polling place will take it on Tuesday. If the envelope was torn or the seal broke in transit, call the election office at 913-573-8500 and ask for a replacement ballot before Tuesday, not on Tuesday.
If you mailed your ballot and have not seen it since. Go through your mail. Then call 913-573-8500 and have staff confirm your ballot was received. Ask for confirmation.
If you have your ballot and have not mailed it. Do not mail it. Four days is not enough runway to gamble on a return address the post office has already rejected once.
Where to take it
Four drop boxes, open twenty four hours, as listed by the Wyandotte County Election Office as of Friday morning.
Wyandotte County Election Office, 850 State Ave., Kansas City
West Branch Library, 1737 N. 82nd St., Kansas City
Bonner Springs Library, 201 N. Nettleton Ave., Bonner Springs
Edwardsville City Hall, 690 S. 4th St., Edwardsville
The election office is open Monday through Friday, eight in the morning to five in the afternoon, and until seven on Election Day. Abbott has also said voters can bring a mail ballot to any early in-person voting location or any Election Day polling place.
The second problem on the same envelope
The deadline printed on the ballot Wyandotte County mailed you is no longer the law.
Senate Bill 4, passed over Governor Laura Kelly’s veto in 2025, eliminated the three-day grace period Kansas had used for nearly a decade and required every advance ballot to reach the county election office by seven in the evening on Election Day. It took effect January 1. On July 16, after more than forty four thousand ballots had already gone out to Kansas voters, a Douglas County district judge blocked it. The Court of Appeals refused to disturb that order on July 28.
On Friday morning the Kansas Supreme Court denied two emergency motions from Secretary of State Scott Schwab, which leaves the injunction standing. A ballot postmarked on or before August 4 counts if it reaches the county within three days.
Schwab told the appellate courts himself that the ballots mailed to voters this month state they must be received by Election Day. So a Wyandotte County voter is holding a return envelope pointed at a box the post office does not serve, printed with a deadline that no longer applies.
As of Friday morning the county’s own website still described the Secretary’s motion as pending and urged voters to return ballots by the close of polls, guidance the Supreme Court had already overtaken hours earlier.
This office has been asked to prepare before
In September 2023, ten Wyandotte County advocacy and direct service organizations went public after Abbott declined to meet with them about language access and early voting. The ACLU of Kansas, one of the signatories, noted at the time that the county could plausibly cross the federal threshold requiring election materials in languages other than English by 2026. Abbott cited a lack of time, because his office was preparing for that year’s elections and the following year’s.
If your ballot came back, tell us
Photograph the envelope, front and back, including any postal markings, and send it to us. Tell us the date you mailed it and the date it came back. If you called the election office, tell us what they said. We are building the count the county has not produced, and every envelope is a data point a public official cannot wave off.
Email the desk or reach us on any platform you already use. We will not publish your name without your permission.
Reach me at ryan@kansascitydefender.com
And before Tuesday, check on somebody who cannot drive. An elder, a neighbor who is homebound, anyone who chose to vote by mail because leaving the house is hard. If they are holding a ballot, get it to a box. The county is not going to do it.
The return envelope the county mailed to advance voters lists both the election office at 850 State Avenue and a post office box the county formerly maintained. According to the election office, postal workers are no longer supposed to attempt delivery to that box, so ballots addressed to it are being sent back to voters as undeliverable.
Yes. A returned ballot is not a spoiled ballot. Keep the return envelope sealed, make sure you have signed the back, and hand-deliver it to a drop box, the election office, or any polling place. If the envelope is torn or the seal is broken, call the Wyandotte County Election Office at 913-573-8500 and request a replacement ballot before Election Day.
There are four twenty four hour drop boxes. The Wyandotte County Election Office at 850 State Ave., Kansas City. West Branch Library at 1737 N. 82nd St., Kansas City. Bonner Springs Library at 201 N. Nettleton Ave., Bonner Springs. Edwardsville City Hall at 690 S. 4th St., Edwardsville. You can also hand your ballot to any early voting site or any Election Day polling place.
A Douglas County court injunction, which the Kansas Supreme Court declined to disturb on July 31, 2026, restores the three-day grace period. A ballot postmarked on or before August 4 counts if the county election office receives it within three days. The deadline printed on ballots mailed this month says Election Day, because those envelopes went out before the injunction. Given the litigation, hand-delivering by seven in the evening on August 4 is the only outcome no court can take away.
Call the Wyandotte County Election Office at 913-573-8500 and ask staff to confirm receipt of your advance ballot. Check your registration and advance ballot status at ksvotes.org. If your ballot has not been received and you cannot account for it, assume it is coming back to you and check your mail.
Michael Abbott. Kansas election commissioners in the four largest counties are appointed by the Secretary of State, currently Scott Schwab, rather than elected. Abbott told Fox4 he received reports that some ballots were returned, that the Postal Service has changed its process, and that he has not heard of further issues.
Unknown as of July 31, 2026. The county has not released a count. Kansas Democratic Party chair Jeanna Repass said the scope cannot be determined from outside because the post office box appears on the printed envelope, meaning every advance voter received the same address. The Kansas City Defender has requested the figures from the election office.
