Although he officially paused his investigation into county election procedures Monday, Sheriff Calvin Hayden continued to cast doubts during a forum Tuesday night hosted by the Johnson County Post.
Hayden and his Republican challenger Doug Bedford, who served as undersheriff under Hayden, spent nearly half of the hour-long question-and-answer session on Hayden’s investigation, which began about three years ago and has so far not resulted in any charges.
The incumbent sheriff announced Monday afternoon, without giving a reason, that he was pausing the investigation.
At the forum Tuesday night at Central Resource Library in Overland Park, he said he did that because the paper ballots from 2019, 2020 and 2021 that he had hoped to preserve were destroyed, per Kansas statute.
And he said the investigation is not over.
“It’s absolutely not over. It’s now not being actively investigated until we get more information,” he said.
He later added, “It’s easy to step back and say, ‘Well, you don’t know what you’re talking about, you don’t have the evidence.’ We’ve gotten enough evidence to create doubt and that’s why we’re looking at the case.”
Hayden said he and staff wrote up a 20-page affidavit in support of a search warrant and were working on it before getting it signed by a judge when the ballots were shredded.
Bedford challenged that. The sheriff had three months notice before the ballots were destroyed in February, he said.
“It’s not like they said, ‘We’re going to destroy them tomorrow morning.’”
For his part, Bedford did not rule out continuing the investigation if he is elected.
“Yes, I would look into the investigation to find out if there is anything there,” he said. “If there’s nothing there, then I would immediately shut down the investigation, and it would be closed.”
He stressed that county residents should be told if there is a problem with election procedures or equipment so that it can be fixed for future elections, adding that the public needs to see results of the investigation sooner so it can be corrected in future elections.
“We’ve had a lot of elections since the 2020 election,” Bedford said. “If there is an issue going on with our election process, tell us what it is.”
On the investigation’s cost so far
The two covered several of the more controversial aspects of the election investigation, with Hayden continuing to sow doubts about the county’s procedures and officials.
Bedford chided Hayden for the expense of the investigation, saying the taxpayers deserve to know how much it’s costing them. Bedford, citing testimony Hayden gave to a Kansas Senate committee in March 2023, said the sheriff has contended the county has spent “millions.”
But Hayden disputed that, claiming he’d been misquoted.
“What I said was the county spent millions of dollars on election machines that we don’t own,” Hayden said. “We haven’t spent millions of dollars on the investigation.”
(A video of the committee hearing from March 20, 2023 can be found here . At about the 42:00 minute mark, Hayden speaks about the election investigation and says, “We’ve spent millions of dollars on this thing and it is sad, the situation.” Later on, he mentions $16 million of county spending on new machines.)
On citizen complaints about elections
At Tuesday’s forum, Hayden also suggested he had more complaints about election procedures but that he wouldn’t release them to protect the complainants from being “harassed” by the media.
“I’ve got thirty-two of them right here,” he said, indicating papers in front of him, “that we didn’t release the names thanks to you all and the press for releasing the lady’s name on one report and harassing her until she changed her comment.”
In fact, there were two instances where local reporters filed open records requests for the front page of the Kansas Standard Offense Reports from the sheriff’s office on election matters, in 2022 and 2023.
In both those cases, complainants were contacted by reporters to verify and perhaps offer further comment. In neither case was the complainant’s name published.
In one instance, the report was submitted to the Johnson County District Attorney’s Office, which declined to pursue charges for lack of evidence. Front pages of Kansas Standard Offense Reports are open record under Kansas law.
On ballots being destroyed
Hayden also said state law was broken when old ballots were destroyed earlier this year and pointed out that the attorney general requested they be preserved.
He also cast doubts on local and state election officials from the Kansas Secretary of State and Johnson county election offices.
Those officials, “wanted to destroy them in a very very expedient way. That indicates to me that they knew we were in the process of getting a warrant for their information and wanted to destroy them prior to us getting a warrant,” he said.
Local officials were not immediately available for comment Tuesday.
Hayden also said the law doesn’t require old ballots to be destroyed but suggests that they can be preserved.
The statute in question is KSA-25-2708, which says “a county election officer shall destroy” ballots within 22 months of an election, unless an election is being contested by one of the parties involved.
Ballots dating back to 2019 had been preserved during Hayden’s investigation, but in December, the county commission finally voted to go through with the ballots’ destruction after getting reminders from the secretary of state’s office to follow the state law.
On accepting election results
Both Hayden and Bedford were asked whether they trust Johnson County’s election processes and would accept the results of the Aug. 6 primary, whether they won or lost.
Hayden replied, “Honestly I can’t say that I do, knowing what I know and knowing the information we have uncovered.”
Bedford said he does trust the election procedures because “there’s been no evidence at this point that proves we can’t trust it.”
Neither man went on to answer whether they would accept the upcoming results.
Hayden said paper ballots would be a good solution to restoring trust because machines are protected and people don’t understand how they work.
Bedford said he’s seen no evidence not to trust the process.
“Show it to us,” he said.
Candidates wrangle over other issues, too
The two did agree that drugs are the biggest problem facing county law enforcement.
But Bedford called out Hayden noting that only one of the 17 cities is currently participating in a countywide drug task force.
Hayden countered that he’d asked Bedford — when Bedford was still undersheriff — to try and convince police chiefs to participate.
“He went to about three meetings and said it didn’t work. I don’t know how you’re going to fix it now, Doug.”
Bedford replied that he has been retired since July of 2021.
“How many cities are participating now, sheriff? One. So was I the problem? I don’t think so.”
At times Tuesday night, Hayden seemed to be setting himself to run against the county commission.
He urged the standing-room-only crowd in attendance to, “Hold them [commissioners] accountable to the public and let them know they’re defunding and not adequately funding the sheriff’s office.”
He said he has had to fight to get funding for pay increases and for more officers for relief for overtime.
“These [commissioners] are anti-law enforcement and if you all don’t hold them accountable they’re going to try and turn this county into Kansas City, Missouri,” he said, earning applause from some.
Bedford disagreed that the Sheriff’s Office is being defunded, noting the department’s budget is up $46 million since Hayden took over the office from former sheriff Frank Denning. He also questioned how Hayden deployed his staff, particularly at the county jail.
On differences with the county commission, Hayden said, “We had a great working relationship until [Chair Mike] Kelly came in and Janeé Hanzlick. They treat our citizens like crap. It’s an embarrassment to watch them.”
Bedford said a sheriff needs to try to work with people even if they don’t agree. He said calling other elected officials, including current commissioners, “communists,” (as Hayden did speaking to a far-right conference last year) is not professional.
Closing statements
Even at the end, the two men traded personal jabs with each other.
As the forum concluded, Hayden drew gasps and objections from some in the crowd when he turned to Bedford and said, “Don’t forget, I made this man. I put trust in him to make him an undersheriff. I picked him over five hundred. I assigned him. And he retired because he didn’t want to carry a gun anymore. Now he wants a gun back. That’s all I can say.”
Bedford responded that the county needs professionalism in a sheriff, “and that right there is definitely not.”
