‘Attempting to interfere’: Johnson County sheriff suggested his staff transport ballots

Johnson County Sheriff Calvin Hayden, who has promoted unsubstantiated suspicions of election fraud, offered to have his staff collect ballots from drop boxes in unmarked vehicles during a July 5 meeting with county officials, according to a letter summarizing the gathering prepared by the county’s top lawyer.

An unidentified member of the sheriff’s staff offered to have deputies present in the room in the election office where votes are counted. And Hayden suggested that ballots deposited in drop boxes must be counted at the drop box site.

Johnson County chief counsel Peg Trent, who summarized the meeting in a letter to Hayden, expressed alarm about how his proposals would look to the public.

“As we discussed, my concern is that these requests give the appearance that the Sheriff’s office is attempting to interfere with an election and to direct a duly authorized election official as to how an election will be conducted,” Trent wrote.

Hayden has been conducting an election fraud investigation for months and has talked up the inquiry at multiple events, most recently last week at a convention of the Constitutional Sheriffs & Peace Officers Association in Las Vegas.

The group claims that county sheriffs are the supreme law of the land and their authority supersedes that of all others, even the president. Its founder, Richard Mack, is a former board member of the Oath Keepers, an extremist organization that recruits its members from among law enforcement.

Hayden has spoken in generalities about the investigation and has made no direct allegation of fraud. Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab and Johnson County Election Commissioner Fred Sherman have repeatedly vouched for the security of the county’s elections.

In statement issued Monday afternoon, Hayden disputed Trent’s description of the meeting.

“We have no intention of asserting ourselves into any election. That is illegal. We have been requested by the Board of County Commissioners to provide security. We made suggestions to help with security. That’s as far as that has gone,” Hayden said.

Shelby Colburn, a spokeswoman for the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office who supplied the statement, said Hayden’s attorney had sent a letter responding to Trent. Colburn didn’t provide the letter, but said the office could share it in the “coming days.”

Still, unsubstantiated assertions of fraud have circulated among Johnson County conservatives for months, fueled both by conspiracy theories and feelings of disbelief that the county voted for President Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election, the first time in more than 100 years the county didn’t support the Republican candidate. Biden’s victory is part of a long-term trend in the county of voters moving away from Republicans, both in state and federal races.

Two of the four candidates for Johnson County Commission chair – Charlotte O’Hara and Ken Selzer – refused to answer a question about whether Biden is the legitimately-elected president at a candidate forum last week hosted by the Shawnee Mission Post. The commission is nonpartisan.

“Well, I love loaded questions,” O’Hara said. “Obviously, Joe Biden is in the White House, this is what has happened at this point. Do we have problems within our election process? Most likely yes.”

O’Hara, a current commissioner, said she supports Hayden’s investigation. Selzer said he is “totally confident” Hayden’s investigation will find any issues, but he refused to answer whether Biden is the legitimately-elected president.

“I don’t think that’s a fair question at all,” Selzer said.

Hayden’s election investigation

In Las Vegas, Hayden credited his ongoing probe – which his office now describes as a “criminal investigation” – to Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips of True the Vote, a Texas conservative nonprofit that claimed to have uncovered massive voter fraud in the 2020 election. Their work was the basis for the “2000 Mules” documentary that is popular among some Republicans. The film has been discredited by many, including former U.S. Attorney General Willam Barr, who served under former President Donald Trump.

“We kind of took our hint from these two over here,” Hayden said, motioning to Engelbrecht and Phillips, who shared the stage with Hayden and several other sheriffs.

But the remarkable July 5 meeting shows Hayden wanting to move beyond investigation to playing a direct role in how elections are conducted. If county officials agreed to his requests, it would place a law enforcement official who has stoked suspicions of fraud at the heart of Johnson County election administration.

Hayden, along with several sheriff’s deputies, met with Sherman and Assistant Election Commissioner Josh King and Assistant County Manager Joe Waters. It does not appear Trent participated in the meeting, but in her letter she writes that she spoke with Hayden on July 7 about the meeting.

The Star revealed the existence of the meeting last week. The Shawnee Mission Post first reported on Trent’s letter.

During the meeting, Hayden, a Republican in the middle of a four-year term, asked whether Sherman would eliminate drop boxes, and questioned officials about limiting the hours drop boxes are available, according to Trent’s letter. Hayden also expressed a concern that the Johnson County Election Office wouldn’t police a 10-ballot delivery limit set by state law.

The expanded use of drop boxes for mailed ballots during the 2020 election did not lead to any widespread problems, according to an Associated Press survey of state election officials across the U.S. that revealed no cases of fraud, vandalism or theft that could have affected the results.

As he seeks to limit the use of drop boxes, Hayden has been politically active. He appears in a new TV ad released by Republican Amanda Adkins’ congressional campaign. Hayden isn’t identified in the ad, but he is shown standing with Adkins twice in the 30-second spot. Both times Adkins and Hayden – wearing blue jeans and a dark blazer – are next to a law enforcement vehicle, its lights flashing.

Hayden also suggested that “the signature verification process is not done in compliance with how the Sheriff’s Office conducts investigations for criminal matters,” a likely reference to how election officials match signatures on absentee ballot envelopes to signatures in the voter rolls. Trent didn’t elaborate further in the letter.

After Trent voiced her concern, Hayden clarified that he was “seeking information in preparation to prosecute certain election crimes that may occur,” according to Trent’s letter.

Trent wrote that state and federal law govern elections, procedures and duties are “set out” and that “we cannot, and will not, permit a violation of duty or statute.”

“From our telephone conversation, you acknowledged the roles and responsibilities ascribed to your elected office including prosecution of election crimes,” Trent wrote. “The County, in turn, through the election commissioner, will attend to its assigned roles and responsibilities and will continue to execute fair and impartial elections for county citizens.”

The Associated Press contributed reporting