In the race for Secretary of State, Dennis Taylor stands head and shoulders above the other four Republican candidates.
If elected chief election officer, Taylor said his focus would be to increase security measures through technology, rather than track down a handful of out-of-state residents for minor election offenses, as he told the Topeka Capital-Journal.
It is a false choice to think we must sacrifice greater citizen participation for greater election security, Taylor continued.
Wow. How refreshing to have someone debunk the right-wing mania over voter fraud by noncitizens.
Which is not to say the Russians are not making serious inroads by hacking into secretaries of state computer systems. Which is why Taylor suggests we beef up our cyber security systems.
So what else makes Taylor stand apart from the crowd?
Despite wide experience in state and county government, Taylor is a relative unknown, proof that he has kept his nose to the grindstone. Taylor, an attorney, has served as secretary of the Kansas Department of Human Resources (now Labor), worked as secretary of the Department of Social and Rehabilitation Service, was chief of staff for Gov. Mike Hayden as well as for Kansas Senate President Bud Burke, and has served on the Shawnee County Commission.
In his role with the U.S. governments Eastern European Public Administration Program, Taylor helped establish democratic managerial practices in six countries after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
In his role as Secretary of the Administration during Gov. Sam Brownbacks tenure, Taylor was instrumental in reorganizing the states IT system and reducing state administrative costs.
And to prove hes more than a robot, Taylor instituted a pro-bono legal service and hotline within the Kansas Bar Association and helped restructure the Topeka Zoo.
IN REGARDS to our current state of affairs, Taylor takes a pass on criticizing Secretary of State Kris Kobachs tenure, but he will say that requiring proof of citizenship is meaningless unless its enforced, and berates the lack of follow-through.
Taylor doesnt seem to think its too much of a burden to request a voter to provide identification; IDs are required for much lesser affairs, he said. Where he takes issue is if the law is on the books, then it needs to be enforced by double-checking whether the proffered license or birth certificate is valid.
He also thinks votes cast need to be audited by comparing either a sample or all of the paper tallies to those of the automated voting machines to ensure they match.
Such a trail, for example, would have helped clear up the charges of election fraud in Wichita during the 2014 election when an upswing in Republican votes went against typical voting patterns.
Twenty-nine states and the District of Columbia require such post-election audits. Kansas does not.
