Johnson County Election Office takes new campaign reports offline
Why was this done in an election year? Why not plan better transition when new system was ready?
Updated Aug 1 with comments from Peggy A. Trent, JoCo Chief Counsel & Director of Legal Department.
July 31, 9:25 AM: Received requested JoCo/PV campaign finance reports from JoCo Election Office about 30 minutes ago. These reports can be downloaded using links below.
While busy today studying recent state Political Action Commission reports, I received a phone call asking why certain Johnson County campaign finance reports were not online.
I said I would take a look.
Campaign Finance Records
I visited the Johnson County Election web site, selected Candidates and Elected Officials, and then Campaign Finance Reports.
And sure enough, there was a new notice since the last time I visited a few months ago.
Old reports could still be viewed online, but per the notice, an email request was the only way to request the new county commission and Prairie Village mayoral reports that should have been filed earlier this week.
The Election Office was quick to give me this reply by email:
Campaign finance documents posted on the JocoElection website were archived as of April 22, 2026, as part of the County’s ongoing ADA remediation efforts.
As you know, campaign finance reports are submitted to our office as paper documents. Because these filings are provided to us in a format that cannot be easily remediated, old documents were moved to an archived section of the website for the public to access, but because any newly created documents would not meet accessibility standards, new scanned copies are no longer posted on the website.
Copies of any campaign finance paperwork are available free of charge upon request. To request copies of campaign finance documents, please contact ELC-Candidates@jocogov.org.
On Saturday, Aug. 1 JoCo Chief Counsel & Director of Legal Department sent these comments by email.
We understand your concern that new campaign finance reports are no longer readily available on the Johnson County Election Office. This decision was not made lightly, and I would like to explain the County’s justification for this change.
In 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice issued a new final rule under the Americans with Disabilities Act prescribing standards for state and local governments to make web content and mobile apps more accessible to persons with disabilities. That rule was originally scheduled to take effect on April 24, 2026. In the final days leading up to that date, the DOJ extended the deadline by one year to April 26, 2027.
Campaign finance filings present challenges for accessibility standards because many are handwritten or otherwise submitted in formats that do not conform to the new ADA requirements. Because the state of Kansas does not mandate electronic filing for these documents, Johnson County is left with a trove of documents that do not conform to the new ADA requirements. Although these filings were produced and submitted by a candidate, Johnson County is responsible for the ADA accessibility of any content posted on our website, including these campaign finance filings.
Leading up to the original April 24, 2026, deadline, Johnson County implemented a change to the web application that displays campaign finance filings to comply with the new ADA requirements. Pre-existing campaign finance filings already posted on the Johnson County website remain available as archived content. The Johnson County Election Office continues to make new campaign finance filings available to the public by providing copies upon request. The campaign finance section of the Election Office website includes a conspicuous statement notifying the public of how to request and obtain these filings. Although campaign finance filings are public records and subject to disclosure under Kansas law, there is no legal requirement that they be published on the Johnson County website.
We cannot speak to the efforts of state agencies to comply with the new ADA requirements. Upon a brief review by our legal staff of some campaign finance filings on state websites, they found numerous PDF documents that did not appear to comply with the new ADA requirements. Due to the extended deadline, they are not currently required to comply, but this finding illustrates the challenge presented by campaign finance filings.
Johnson County remains committed to providing web content that is accessible to the widest possible audience, regardless of technology or ability, and to complying with applicable legal requirements. The County continues to evaluate the availability and feasibility of technology options to satisfy ADA standards for all County web content and mobile apps, including campaign finance filings.
Peggy A. Trent
Chief Counsel & Director of Legal Department
Johnson County Legal Department
I’m not sure I understand either reply.
Because the County wants to improve access for a few based on “ADA remediation efforts,” no one can now view any reports online?
Why would any system be designed and implemented with a break like this? Why not get a new system online, with both old and new system running smoothly, and then announce the transition?
In the past anyone could review these reports anonymously online, but now an email request for a particular campaign finance report becomes an open record that anyone can request via Kansas Open Records Act. Who wants that?
Requested Reports
I have requested the following recent campaign reports per the instructions in the email and online:
County Commission
Chair
Karen Crnkovich
Mike Kelly
Gene Senesac
District 1
Becky Fast
Ben Hobert
District 4
Teresa Erb
District 5
Greg Mitchell
Michael L. Ashcraft
Prairie Village Mayor
Cole Robinson
Inga Selders
JoCo Election office: We have not yet received the Receipts and Expenditures report from Cole Robinson’s mayoral campaign.
Big Kansas Open Records Act (KORA) problem in getting late reports like Robinson’s. Technically, a report must exist before a KORA request can be submitted and honored. Online, immediate access is far better.
One could have reviewed all of these reports online in the time it took to write this article.
Digital transparency?
While ADA remediation may help some people access these reports, analysis of most government data, including campaign finance reports, is tedious and not unlike paper analysis 25 years ago. We have “digital paper” now, not data that can be directly analyzed.
Will these new changes promote “digital transparency” and the ability to work with data directly, without a tedious conversion process?
Making progress
To be fair, Johnson County is making a lot of progress. Or was.
This is what the “online” campaign finance library looked like in Jan. 2009.
Related
Higher Ed Prepares for New Era of Accessibility, Inside Higher Ed, Jan. 21, 2026.
Looming federal regulations update the ADA to make web content and mobile apps more accessible to people, including college students, with disabilities. But universities are scrambling to comply by the April deadline.
The divergent amounts of money is obvious in reading the reports. Kelly has hundreds of thousands of dollars in contributions listed. Crnkovich has tens of thousands, including loans to herself. Senesac has thousands, barely.
On Kelly’s report are labor unions, attorneys, doctors, and many Middle Eastern (Arabic) names, especially on pages 15-16 without occupations and the filler “Information Requested”.