IT'S ALWAYS THE rIGHT:

Hayden, who is serving his second term as sheriff, referred to his own election victory in 2020.

"In fact, you're looking at a guy -- I got 260,000 votes and I got more than both presidential candidates and I'm way downballot," Hayden said. "And that bothers me."

Hayden didn't tell the crowd that he ran unopposed in 2020, unlike the presidential candidates.

Few outside the sheriff's office appear to know what Hayden and his department are investigating.

"Our office has received voter questions about the administrative process and concerns about fraud in Johnson County," Whitney Tempel, a spokesman for the Kansas Secretary of State's Office, said in an email. "Every inquiry our office receives is reviewed and investigated. Thus far, no evidence of fraud has been found."

The Johnson County Sheriff's Office was asked again this week if it could describe the nature of the tips it has received about alleged election fraud or whether any of more than 200 tips it said it has received could be substantiated. Through a spokesperson, the sheriff's office declined to answer.

The Midwest Newsroom filed a Kansas Open Records Act request for copies of the first page of any Kansas Standard Offense Report taken by the Johnson County Sheriff's Office regarding alleged election-related crimes since 2020.

Law enforcement in Kansas fills out such offense reports to document reports of crimes. The first page of Kansas Standard Offense Reports, which contain basic information such as the date an incident took place, its location, the nature of an alleged offense and its victim or witnesses, is a public record. Subsequent pages, which list suspects and a description of how the alleged crime was committed, is not a public record.

In response, a records supervisor in the sheriff's office provided one report and said a review turned up no other reports since 2020.

The lone report, dated July 20, lists the Johnson County Election Office as the location of an alleged violation of a Kansas law that makes it illegal to attempt to change, alter or destroy any vote cast by paper ballot or electronic machine.

Reached by phone, a 71-year-old Olathe woman listed as the victim of the alleged violation said she and her husband were casting an early vote on July 19. She declined to provide specifics about the incident.

"I don't know what happened, if it was just an accident," she said before declining to discuss the matter further.

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