Here’s a New Year’s Resolution for the Kansas Legislature: no more wasting our time and money on election conspiracy theories.

In September and October of 2023, Sen. Mike Thompson and others hosted hearings featuring speakers peddling truly insane speculations. These included the contention — really — that Italy and the Vatican have infiltrated Kansas elections by manipulating military satellites. Other speakers were linked to QAnon, the deranged, violent and deeply antisemitic conspiracy theory. Under questioning, these speakers admitted that they had no actual knowledge of how elections are conducted in Kansas. Many of the conspiracy theorists relied on the idea that Kansas election equipment is connected to the internet, which is false and easily disproved. Slate dubbed this “The Election Denialist Roadshow.” Some Republicans actually believe this nonsense, while others know better but play along for fear of getting primaried.

Satellites, “ballot harvesting” and George Soros are not legitimate concerns, but there are a few things that would improve Kansas elections.

A serious election security bill would begin by properly updating the registration rolls. While there is no evidence of ballots being cast in the name of dead people here, and it is extremely rare elsewhere in the U.S., good recordkeeping still calls for the rolls to be current. Voters rarely notify election authorities that they have moved or that a loved one has passed away. New death certificates along with change-of-address filings at the post office can be quite helpful here. A nonpartisan, multistate system called ERIC (Electronic Registration Information Center) shares this data across state lines. ERIC has also been targeted by conspiracy theorists, but this should not affect policymaking.

Additional challenges include signature matches, now the usual way to validate ballots. Many signatures are now taken on a digital pad rather than with a pen and paper, and many people make only a squiggly line on those rather than actually signing. In addition to setting standards for signatures, the bill should also require all digital voting machines to print a piece of paper for each ballot. These can be inspected by the voter before being cast in the ballot box, and also used for both machine and hand recounts, when necessary. Even more crucial are better pay and training for poll workers. In today’s toxic political environment, providing for the security of election workers is also vital. Some have received death threats.

On the other hand, certain so-called “election security” measures are really just sleazy political tactics. First and foremost is voter “caging,” targeting certain voters (usually people of color living in urban areas) and sending them postcards that must be completed and returned or the voter is removed from the rolls. With most of us overwhelmed with junk mail, these often get tossed out by mistake. The tactic is a blatant attempt to target certain voters and remove them from the rolls. A good election security bill would include a strong, enforceable ban on caging.

A good bill would also ban the de-registration of any voter based on name duplicates alone. These do not target actual fraud but rather people who are likely to have similar names. African-American, Latino and Asian-American voters are more likely to have similar names than are white non-Hispanic voters, and the tactic is another blatant attempt to de-register targeted groups of people.

Kansas elections could indeed be better, but deranged conspiracy theories and legislative sideshows are not the answer. Actual election experts have a number of thoughtful ideas that would make a welcome alternative to the noise and the nonsense.

— Michael Smith is a professor of political science at Emporia State University.