Division of the Budget
Landon State Office Building Phone: (785) 296-2436
900 SW Jackson Street, Room 504 larry.campbell@ks.gov
Topeka, KS 66612 Division of the Budget http://budget.kansas.gov
Adam Proffitt, Director Laura Kelly, Governor


February 3, 2021


The Honorable Larry Alley, Chairperson
Senate Committee on Federal and State Affairs
Statehouse, Room 136-E
Topeka, Kansas 66612
Dear Senator Alley:
SUBJECT: Fiscal Note for SB 94 by Senate Committee on Federal and State Affairs
In accordance with KSA 75-3715a, the following fiscal note concerning SB 94 is
respectfully submitted to your committee.
SB 94 would amend existing law relating to voting systems and procedures to require that
all voting systems used for elections must use an individual, durable, voter-verified, paper ballot
of the voter’s vote which would be considered the official ballot and would be considered the true
and correct record of votes cast. The bill would establish the requirements for how the ballot must
be marked, corrected, preserved, counted, made available to the voter, and canvassed. The bill
would require a sample hand-counted audit of the paper ballots to be conducted in each precinct
at the polling place after the close the polls. The results must be reported to the county election
officer, the canvassing board and the Secretary of State. Poll books not requiring a hand-written
signature would be prohibited. The bill would take effect upon publication in the statute book.
According to the Secretary of State, enactment of SB 94 would require significant policy
changes. The agency indicates it would use existing resources and personnel to update policies,
training documents, and educational materials provided to county election officers and the general
public. The agency reports that there would be additional costs for Kansas counties that would
need to replace existing voting machines; however, fewer than ten counties would need to do so.
SB 94 would require that these purchases be completed by January 1, 2022, and the cost would be
between $20,000 and $300,000 per county, depending on the size of the county and the number of
machines that would need to be purchased. In addition, counties would be required to conduct
hand-counted manual audits of each precinct. This would require each county to hire and train a
new bi-partisan board to conduct the audit, which could result in additional costs ranging from a
few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars per county.
The Honorable Larry Alley, Chairperson
Page 2—SB 94

According to the Kansas Association of Counties, most counties in Kansas already have
these machines in place. Others are in the process of replacing machines that do not comply but
may not have those machines in place prior to January 1, 2022. Enactment of SB 94 could result
in additional costs to counties that do not have compliant machines if they have not budgeted to
replace the equipment in 2022.


Sincerely,

Adam Proffitt
Director of the Budget

cc: Sandy Tompkins, Office of the Secretary of State
Jay Hall, Association of Counties


Statutes affected:
As introduced: 25-1122a, 25-1138, 25-1135, 25-1137, 25-2810, 25-3006, 25-4401, 25-4404, 25-4406, 25-4412, 25-4603, 25-4611, 25-4613