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Biggs: Voter fraud not a Kansas issue
Published 7/31/2010 in Local News
By RACHAEL GRAY
In a heated race for the Kansas secretary of state office, incumbent Chris Biggs, 51, (D-Junction City) wants to stick to issues that deal directly with the secretary of state's office, and said his visits to different corners of the state are for business, not to campaign.
During a visit to southwest Kansas earlier this week, Biggs discussed voting issues with area county clerks.
Biggs said, according to his visits with county clerks in all regions of the state, that voter fraud is not an issue in Kansas, which has been a major platform for Republican candidate Kris Kobach, (R-Piper).
"I was a prosecutor at the county level for almost 15 years, and during that time over 20,000 criminal cases went out of office. I had one case of voter fraud," he said.
He said voter fraud is so rare and isolated, if there is an issue, there's no procedure in place to deal with it. He said with his law background, he'd be able to facilitate information between law enforcement and prosecutors, if voter fraud was to become a concern.
"We don't have a major problem," he said.
Biggs said voter apathy is more of a concern for Kansas.
He said he would like to make voting more available for Kansans, with satellite polling places, or stations that come to voters.
Biggs expressed concern about the Secretary of State position being politicized by the issue of illegal immigration.
He said voter fraud is often associated with illegal immigrants, and said voter fraud isn't an issue, but illegal immigration is. The two are not related, he said.
"Immigration is an issue, no doubt, but to make the leap from immigration being an issue to people (illegal immigrants) voting in elections, doesn't follow through," he said.
He didn't comment on his stance on Arizona's immigration law, Senate Bill 1070, a law in part authored by Kobach. The law requires local and state law enforcement officers to question people about their immigration status if there is reason to suspect they are in the country illegally.
"I'm concerned with Kansans, I'm concerned with the secretary of state's office. I'm not focusing on issues that aren't related to that office, which is why I'm visiting with Kansans today, not in some other state dealing with some other issue," he said.
Biggs said he had been going to a lot of different parts of the state to meet with clerks. He said he wanted to get different perspectives on the voting process.
"They're the people out there on the front lines. They do the daily work in dealing with elections," he said. Biggs said one of the issues that has been brought up is voter identification. He said the ID system right now isn't completely secure, but if the problem is corrected, he wants to make sure the state takes the proper steps to fix the issue, and does so with cost efficiency.
"A voter ID at the polls will not address advance mail ballots which are becoming more and more a part of our voting," he said.
He said the ID will not stop double-voting, which has not been a major problem, but officials do catch it.
"My main concerns are keeping costs down for Kansans," he said.
Biggs will face Chris Steineger (D-Kansas City, Kan.) in Tuesday's primary.
The republican race is between Kobach, Libby Ensley (R-Topeka) and J.R. Claeys (R-Salina).
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