TOPEKA — Gov. Jeff Colyer signed a bill Friday that will require candidates in future elections to be at least 25 years of age in order to run for the office of governor. It will also require candidates for any statewide office to be residents of the state.

That new law will not take effect until next year, so it will not directly affect the many teenagers and out-of-state residents who have already filed or formed campaign committees for the 2018 elections.

Kansas was one of only two states that did not have a minimum age to run for governor. Vermont is now the only state with no minimum age.

Kansas also has no specific law requiring candidates for statewide office to be residents of the state, although Attorney General Derek Schmidt is asking a judge in Shawnee County to declare that such a requirement is at least implied in one statute. A hearing in that case is scheduled for Monday.

Those new requirements were just part of House Bill 2539, which makes a number of other changes to Kansas election law.

For one, it will, for the first time, require that candidates for attorney general be licensed to practice law in the state, something the state has not required until now, although voters have never elected anyone to the office who was not a licensed attorney.

Other changes in the bill affect how elections are conducted, and how they are verified afterwards.

It prohibits counties from purchasing or leasing any new electronic voting machines that do not also provide a paper record of a voter’s ballot at the time the ballot is cast.

In addition, the bill loosens some requirements about advance ballots so that people with physical disabilities who cannot sign their name can still cast ballots.

And it requires random audits of each election, while extending the time counties have to conduct their final canvass of an election to any business day within 13 days after the election.