Kobach won the office in 2010 on a platform of rewriting state election laws. He boosted his national profile by championing tough voter identification laws and ran unsuccessfully for governor as a vocal ally of President Donald Trump.
Both Schwab and Kobach are conservative Republicans. But Schwab said in a recent Associated Press interview: “People want things to calm down.”
His plan is to focus on improving the day-to-day administration of elections but the Kansas Senate’s top Democrat has a proposal to curb the office’s power to oversee elections in the state’s four most populous counties.