House bill would designate Shawnee County as venue for all challenges to Kansas election laws
TOPEKA — The Kansas Secretary of State’s Office wants to block voting rights groups from “forum shopping” legal challenges to election laws by requiring such cases to be filed in Shawnee County District Court, a forum that is often favorable to Republicans.
During a Tuesday hearing on House Bill 2569, Rep. Pat Proctor, the Leavenworth Republican who chairs the House Elections Committee, and J. Christian Adams, president of a Virginia-based conservative legal group, vented animosity toward the American Civil Liberties Union, Loud Light, the League of Women Voters of Kansas, and Kansas Appleseed for their “onslaught of litigation,” as Adams called it, over election laws.
The GOP-led Legislature, fueled by misinformed outrage over the 2020 presidential election, enacted laws over the past five years to strengthen the public perception that Kansas elections are safe and secure. Some of those laws make it more difficult to cast advance ballots or help people register to vote.
Voting rights groups in the past five years have filed two lawsuits over election laws in state court, one in 2021 in Shawnee County and one in 2025 in Douglas County. Both are ongoing. Other cases have been filed in federal court.
https://kansasreflector.com/2026/02/11/house-bill-would-designate-shawnee-county-as-venue-for-all-challenges-to-kansas-election-laws/
