TOPEKA — State Sen. Dennis Pyle expressed frustration Wednesday with the pace of the review by county and state election officials of thousands of signatures submitted with his petition to be included on the November ballot as an independent candidate for governor.
Pyle, a conservative legislator and farmer from Hiawatha, stepped away from the Republican Party to launch his darkhorse candidacy as an alternative to Democrat Laura Kelly, Republican Derek Schmidt and Libertarian Seth Cordell.
He said the secretary of state’s office certified the 2018 petition of independent gubernatorial candidate Greg Orman within 11 days of receiving Orman’s stack of signatures from people who said they were registered voters in Kansas. Pyle submitted his petition documentation Aug. 1, but was informed Tuesday by the secretary of state’s office that Kansas law didn’t require completion of the process in alignment with Orman’s experience.
