Republican Rep. Pat Proctor has a narrow lead in what has turned out to be an extremely tight race to be the next Kansas Secretary of State.

Proctor, a Republican state legislator from Leavenworth who chairs the Kansas House Elections Committee, has just 522,175 votes as of Wednesday morning, or 48% of the vote.

Jennifer Day, the Democrat from Mission who previously served in the Kansas Legislature and has worked as a poll worker, has 511,419, or 47% of the vote.

Plus, Scott Morgan, the United Kansas candidate from Lawrence who originally hails from Shawnee, garnered 45,571 votes, taking home 4% of the vote — something he feels is a win in its own right.

All of that means the race is too close to call at this point, but Proctor told the Post on Wednesday morning that he’s feeling good about where things stand.

“It looks like we won,” he said.

He also feels doubly assured after watching a state constitutional amendment on noncitizen voting that he was the architect of easily pass.

Day offered a different assessment, calling the race “too close to call,” in an emailed statement Wednesday.

“There are still provisional ballots and advance mail ballots being processed and counted across Kansas, and we owe it to every eligible voter to make sure their vote is counted,” Day said. “We knew going into this election that it would be competitive.”

“We are going to remain patient, follow the process, and make sure every eligible ballot is accounted for. This is about the integrity of our elections and making sure every Kansan has a voice,” she continued. “Regardless of the outcome, I am incredibly proud of this campaign and the people who made it possible.”

The ultimate winner of the Kansas Secretary of State race will succeed Scott Schwab, the outgoing secretary of state who did not seek reelection but instead ran an unsuccessful campaign to be the Republican nominee for Kansas Governor.

Proctor’s noncitizen voting constitutional amendment easily passed

Rep. Proctor sponsored a constitutional amendment that easily passed with 64% of the vote, as of Wednesday morning. The amendment changes language in the Kansas Constitution to make it so that only citizens can vote.

Proctor, in an interview with the Post, described it as a necessary step to ensure noncitizens aren’t voting in Kansas.

However, critics called the amendment duplicative since the state constitution already requires citizenship to vote.

In the existing text, “every citizen of the United States” is considered a qualified elector, and state law makes it a felony to “knowingly vote” as a noncitizen.

Albeit rare, instances of noncitizen voting have been prosecuted as criminal offenses in Kansas. In a recent case, the now-former mayor of Coldwater, Kansas, pleaded guilty to three charges of voter fraud after it was revealed he was not a citizen but a legal resident.

Proctor said he’s “incredibly heartened” the amendment passed, glad to see the state’s noncitizen voting laws enshrined in the Kansas Constitution. He said that could put the issue above a court challenge.

“Now that we have that constitutional amendment in place, Kansans can be assured that some crazy activist judge isn’t going to legislate from the bench and decide that we have to let noncitizens vote in our state,” he said.

United Kansas candidate feels good about the outcome

Earning 4% of the vote might not feel like a victory for most candidates seeking a statewide office, but Morgan is taking it as a big win for the United Kansas Party.

A former Republican who previously ran in a Republican primary for Kansas Secretary of State more than a decade ago, Morgan serves as the executive director of United Kansas, a small party for those outside of the Republican and Democratic parties.

This year, Morgan said he was hoping to get at least 1% of the vote “to survive and keep going” as a party. By that statistic, the election was a success in his eyes, since he got 4%.

“We had one mission, and we did it, and we should feel really good about that,” Morgan said. “We want to do well everywhere, but we like the fact that we’re offering a voice where often there haven’t been choices.”

He said there are so many races out there — particularly Kansas Legislature races — that are uncontested, meaning only one party fields a candidate. When that happens, the decision is effectively made in a partisan primary, leaving little option for people who are unaffiliated or are looking for an alternative.

In U.S. politics, third parties and their candidates can get a bad rap as spoilers, especially in close-call races; that’s a label Morgan rejects wholeheartedly.

“These were Kansans who made a choice who wanted something different, and there is nothing wrong with that,” he said. “I think offering Kansans a choice is not spoiling anything.”