Topeka ? The Kansas House advanced a bill Wednesday that would give the secretary of state’s office independent authority to prosecute election crimes while also making it easier to obtain convictions for those crimes.

The bill narrowly advanced toward final action by a 63-57 vote. All four members of the Lawrence-area delegation — Republican Rep. Tom Sloan and Democratic Reps. Barbara Ballard, Boog Highberger and John Wilson — voted against it.

It passed the Senate in February by a vote of 23-17. Both senators from Douglas County, Democrats Marci Francisco, of Lawrence, and Tom Holland, of Baldwin City, voted against the measure.

Rep. Boog Highberger, D-Lawrence, speaks on the floor of the Kansas House against a bill that gives the Secretary of State independent authority to prosecute election crimes.

“I’ve never heard anyone question the fairness of Kansas elections until the last few years,” Highberger said. “The reason for that is the extreme partisanship of our secretary of state.”

“No other previous secretary of state has asked for this power,” he added. “To the best of my knowledge, no other secretary of state across the country has this power. It’s about taking away local control from local prosecutors. And ultimately I think it’s about intimidating voters.”

Ballard said she doesn’t believe the job of prosecuting crimes belongs in the secretary of state’s office.

“I just have never thought of the Secretary of State’s office as competing with the attorney general’s office, or the district attorney’s office in my community,” she said. “And I would hope we are not doing that and taking away the local control that we all say we want for our local communities.”

The bill would amend several statutes about election crimes, increasing the severity level of some from a misdemeanor to a felony. That would mean people could also be prosecuted for attempting to violate the law.

It would also lower the standard of proof in order to obtain a conviction so that a prosecutor would not have to show that a person knew his or her actions were illegal. They would only have to show that the person knew he or she had engaged in a particular act, regardless of knowing it was illegal.

Opponents of the bill said that could include voting, or even attempting to vote at the wrong polling place, or doing so without being registered.

The bill was requested by Republican Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who argued in committee hearings that election crimes were going unprosecuted by local county and district attorneys. He also argued that other state officers, including the insurance commissioner and securities commissioner, also have the power to prosecute specific types of crimes under their jurisdiction.

But Democrats argued that each of the alleged criminal acts Kobach referred to actually had been addressed by local prosecutors. They said many turned out to be unintentional mistakes by the voters and they were offered diversion agreements, meaning the charge is dropped in exchange for the accused agreeing not to commit the act again.

One case involved an elderly couple who had moved from Johnson County to Arkansas but still owned property in Johnson County and were on Johnson County’s list of people who are automatically sent advance ballots. They marked their ballots and mailed them back. Their ballots were not counted and the Johnson County district attorney declined to prosecute them.

Opponents of the bill offered several amendments, but all of those were defeated. That means, if it passes on final action Thursday, it will go to Gov. Sam Brownback for his signature.

But it is unclear whether supporters of the bill can muster the 63 votes needed for final passage. That’s because at least two of the yes votes Wednesday came from Democrats who oppose the bill: Reps. John Carmichael and Jim Ward, of Wichita.

They tried unsuccessfully to use a parliamentary maneuver to kill the bill after Wednesday’s vote by offering a motion to reconsider the previous action. That motion can only be offered by someone who voted on the prevailing side, and it can only be done once on a bill.

Had they succeeded, the bill would have been killed and could not be brought back up later in the session.

But there were also a number of Republicans who voted against the bill Wednesday who could switch their vote on final passage. And there were five House members who were not present to vote Wednesday but who may be present Thursday.