In the days since his apparent defeat in the 3rd District Republican primary for U.S. Congress, Adam Taff has been locked in a battle for voting records in Douglas, Wyandotte and Johnson counties.

Taff said Friday he hoped the records — log books from polls that contain voter names and whether the voters completed provisional ballots — could be used to learn more about the election returns before counties certified their results.

Taff trails Kris Kobach by 81 votes. The winner will challenge U.S. Rep. Dennis Moore, a Democrat, in the Nov. 2 general election.

“We hoped (the records) would enable us to perhaps get a feel for where we stood earlier,” Taff said. “It’s important to know who voted.”

But the campaign hasn’t received any of the records, though Atty. Gen. Phill Kline wrote a letter to the counties Thursday verifying the logs are public information.

That’s because the open records requests were made Wednesday, and state open records law gives entities three days to respond to requests.

Evan Ice, Douglas County attorney, said the county would make the logs available, but not before the election was certified Friday. Wyandotte County officials, who also certified their election Friday, apparently made the same decision.

“These are documents (election workers) needed to prepare for (Friday), and we didn’t feel we could let them have them until after the canvass,” Ice said. “It was a practical matter. They needed to use them.”

Johnson County officials responded to the Taff request late Friday, said Connie Schmidt, election commissioner. She said their response was the same as that of Douglas and Wyandotte counties — the campaign could have the information after the election was certified.

“We’re way behind (on work) now as it is,” she said. “We’ve not been able to get our work done.”

But Terry Campbell, a Lawrence attorney who spoke for the Taff campaign at Friday’s Douglas County canvassing meeting, said the campaign only wanted the records if they could be obtained before the election canvass.

“The failure to act is a functional denial,” Campbell said. “The records don’t do us any good after the election is certified.”

That is, in part, because Taff workers were considering contacting certain voters who cast provisional ballots to let them know how to better the chances of their ballots being counted, said Brian Hummell, a Taff campaign volunteer. Seventeen Douglas County voters who came to the polls on Tuesday were first-time voters in the county and were required to bring identification to the County Clerk’s Office after Tuesday for their provisional ballots to count.

Only two of those voters did bring in IDs, and theirs were the only two of the 17 whose votes were tabulated Friday. The others weren’t counted.

“Fifteen people got their votes thrown out,” Hummell said. “There’s no way for us to know if they voted for (Taff), Dr. Kobach, or Patricia Lightner (the third-place candidate). It would be nice to be a little more aggressive and proactive to have their votes counted.”

A spokesman for Kobach said his campaign had no objection to Taff receiving the records.

“Either way, we feel the process is sound,” Christian Morgan said. “Whether the request is granted has no bearing on the outcome of the provisional ballot count. It’s really not an issue with us.”