Records request from the Shawnee Mission Post:

Earlier this spring, Johnson County Sheriff Calvin Hayden painted a distressing picture of the county’s elections during a hearing before a Kansas Senate committee.

According to his testimony, there had been more than 15 statutory violations of election laws his office had turned over to the district attorney that were awaiting action. There had been no criminal penalties for most of those violations so far, he said, but crime mapping went “all the way to China.”

Hayden has been investigating Johnson County election results for over a year but has so far largely failed to produce any evidence publicly to back up complaints he says he’s hearing from residents that there was widespread voter fraud in 2020 and 2021, frequently saying he can’t because of the ongoing investigation.

Following Hayden’s testimony in March, the Post sought public records related to the 15 violations Hayden referenced to lawmakers.

That open records request produced a single case that has been referred to District Attorney Steve Howe. And for that one case, Howe told the Post there was no evidence to support bringing criminal charges.