Revenue and taxation; Oklahoma Property Tax Payment Policy Act of 2025; effective date.

2025 Regular Session Introduced by Daniel Pae

Creates a new felony offense for interfering with an election official through intimidation or coercion to impede duties or retaliate.

Second Reading referred to Rules

Summary — Kansas HB 2023 (As introduced)

Brief description
HB 2023 would create a new criminal offense — “interference with an election official” — making it a felony for a person to intimidate, threaten, coerce, or attempt to do so against an election official with the intent to (1) impede or otherwise interfere with the official’s performance of election duties, or (2) retaliate for the official’s performance of those duties.

Key provisions
- New offense: Interference with an election official is defined as intimidating, threatening, coercing, or attempting to intimidate, threaten or coerce an election official (verbally, in writing, or through physical acts) with intent to impede performance of official duties or to retaliate for performance of duties.
- Penalty: Classified as a severity level 7, nonperson felony under Kansas law. Sentencing would follow Kansas felony sentencing guidelines for that severity level.
- Scope / definitions:
- “Election official” includes county clerks, election commissioners, election judges, election clerks, members of canvassing/audit/other election boards, and any person performing official election duties.
- The term expressly excludes poll agents.
- Exclusion: The statute does not apply to lawful enforcement actions taken by an election official against another election official (including election judges) under state or federal law or applicable rules/regulations.
- Effective date: The act takes effect upon publication in the statute book.

Who would be affected
- Primary: individuals who perform official election duties (as defined above) — protections expanded by criminal penalty.
- Secondary: voters, candidates, campaigns, political parties, election administrators, local law enforcement, county prosecutors, district courts, and the Secretary of State (administrative/training role).

Fiscal and administrative impacts (per Fiscal Note, Div. of the Budget, Feb 5, 2025)
- Secretary of State: will use existing resources to update training, manuals, public documents, website content, and public outreach to inform stakeholders.
- Corrections / Sentencing Commission: potential effect on admissions, bed space and workload is expected to be negligible.
- Judiciary: could see an increase in district court filings and workload; the impact is indeterminate but potentially modest. Increased collections of fines/fees are possible.
- Counties: may incur costs if prosecutions or investigations increase; effect not estimated.

Legislative status / timeline (as provided)
- Introduced (filed): January 16 / January 22, 2025
- Committee hearing: February 6, 2025 (House Committee on Elections)
- Passed House: February 13, 2025; transmitted to Senate; Senate readings occurred Feb 24–25, 2025 (per provided actions).

Limitations / notes
- This summary reflects the “As introduced” Kansas text and the accompanying fiscal note. The bill’s penalty refers to Kansas sentencing levels; specific incarceration or supervision terms are governed by existing sentencing law for severity level 7 felonies.