Tenth Circuit Upholds Kansas Prefill Ban on Mail-Ballot Applications

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit on Oct. 14, 2026, reversed a judgment blocking Kansas from enforcing a restriction on third parties who partially fill out mail-ballot applications before mailing them to voters. The panel held that the restriction survives intermediate scrutiny and that the district court had improperly found it was enacted to suppress support for voting by mail.

The ruling concerns a specific kind of mailing, not a general ban on third parties sending ballot applications. The restriction applies when someone solicits a registered voter by mail to apply for an advance voting ballot and includes an application in that mailing. The sender may not complete any part of the application before mailing it.

How the court reached its decision

Kansas enacted the restriction in 2021 as part of H.B. 2332. The district court initially blocked it, finding an improper legislative purpose and concluding that it failed constitutional review. In an earlier appeal, the Tenth Circuit directed the district court to apply intermediate scrutiny unless challengers established an improper purpose. After the case returned, the district court again enjoined the restriction.

In its Oct. 14 decision, the appeals panel concluded that the district court had inferred a purpose to suppress pro-mail-voting speech from national political debate, rather than from the law’s justifications, text or legislative history. The panel found the restriction adequately tailored to Kansas’s interests and held that it met intermediate scrutiny.

Voter Participation Center argued that the restriction violated its First Amendment rights and was intended to suppress mail-voting advocacy. Kansas cited reducing voter confusion, efficient election administration and confidence in election integrity as interests supporting the rule. VoteAmerica resolved all its claims against Kansas by stipulation.

Application errors and election-office processing

The opinion says Voter Participation Center and a sister organization sent partially prefilled applications to about 510,000 Kansas voters in 2020. It recounts Kansas expert Ken Block’s estimate that concerns touched around 3% of Voter Participation Center’s Kansas voter records. That estimate suggested around 15,000 error-filled applications may have been sent; the application figure is an inference, not a verified count.

The panel also recounted county officials’ testimony about the time needed to process applications. Accurate, nonduplicate applications typically took three to five minutes. Applications requiring correction typically took about 15 minutes. Processing could take 30 minutes or more when officials could not contact a voter and sent a provisional ballot. The panel considered those administrative concerns as part of its review of Kansas’s justification for the restriction.

The appeals court reversed the judgment that had enjoined the prefill restriction. The opinion does not establish that enforcement resumed on the day it was filed.

A separate Kansas provision limiting who could mail ballot applications based on residency or domicile was permanently enjoined by stipulation. The Tenth Circuit’s decision addressed the prefill restriction, not that separate provision.