County GOP Halts Search for a New Clerk After State Tells It to Stop

The Bourbon County Republican Party has stopped its search for a new county clerk, days after announcing it would begin one.

In a statement issued Aug. 14, party chair Kaety Bowers said the party “officially retracts its statement of intent to begin the replacement process” for the office of County Clerk, and that it did so after the Secretary of State’s election director instructed it to cease.

County Clerk Susan Walker announced her resignation at the Aug. 10 county commission meeting, effective Aug. 31, ending 24 years with the county. The written statement she read to commissioners says she will be “stepping down from my position as County Clerk, effective 08/31/26.”

As of late Saturday morning, Aug. 15, no resignation letter had been filed with the governor. Walker said in an interview then that she had not yet sent one and that she intends to. Kansas law treats an announced resignation and a filed one as separate matters, and that distinction runs through everything that followed.

The party’s statement, in full

Bowers issued the following statement on Aug. 14. It is reproduced here in its entirety.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

August 14, 2026

Bourbon County Republican Chair Responds to Clerk’s Announcement

FORT SCOTT, Kan. —

On Monday, Clerk Walker publicly announced her resignation effective August 31, 2026, during the county commission meeting. Her written statement was later published online. She informed the Secretary of State’s office today that the resignation was instead an “announcement” and that she has not notified the Governor. It remains unclear when, or if, a formal resignation letter will be submitted.

Earlier this week, the Secretary of State’s election director cleared the Bourbon County Republican Party to begin the statutory replacement process for the office of County Clerk under K.S.A. 19-303 and 25-3902. After the subsequent discussion with County Clerk Susan Walker today, the same director instructed the Party to cease the process. The Party does not hold the election director at fault.

In light of these developments, the Bourbon County Republican Party officially retracts its statement of intent to begin the replacement process.

The people of Bourbon County deserve clarity, not shifting statements depending on the audience. If the resignation is genuine, the letter should be filed where the law requires. If it is not, the public announcements should stop as this uncertainty serves no one. The unfortunate timing of any vacancy places a new clerk directly into preparation for the November general election, making every day of transition time valuable.

The Party remains prepared to follow the law the moment formal notice is properly filed and will comply with the latest directive from the Secretary of State’s office until then.

Kaety Bowers

Chair, Bourbon County Republican Party

What Walker says happened

Walker described the call in an interview with FortScott.biz on Saturday. She said she phoned the Secretary of State’s office about the county canvass — the Aug. 4 primary left a three-vote margin in the District 1 commission race — and that her resignation letter came up incidentally. The state election director is the official county election officers work with on election administration, which is what Walker said she called about.

“I called the Secretary of State because I was working on my canvassing and I had some questions, and I said, by the way, I said, do I send my letter to you? And also the governor,” Walker said. “He goes, ‘What? You haven’t sent your letter in yet?'”

She said the director asked whether she had made an announcement, and she said she had.

“He goes, ‘Well, you need to call the party chair.’ I said, ‘She won’t take my phone calls.’ And he goes, ‘Well, fine, I’ll do it.'”

In Walker’s telling, the missing letter is the reason the process stopped, and the director acted on his own. She said the letter is coming: “Am I sending my letter in? Absolutely, I am. I just haven’t had time.” Election work had priority, she said. Reached shortly before noon on Saturday, she said she was only then leaving the office after working the weekend on the canvass: “I’ve been working tirelessly to make sure the canvass goes off. I’m just now leaving the office.”

What the party was told

The party’s understanding of that same call differs on one point.

Bowers explained to FortScott.biz that, while Walker’s announcement would ordinarily have counted as notice that a vacancy was going to occur — the event that starts a county party’s clock to find a replacement — the director told her Walker had called him to say her announcement should not be treated as that notice.

On that account, the lack of a letter to the governor was not what stopped the process.

The written statement stops short of saying that. It places the halt after the director’s discussion with Walker without saying the discussion caused it.

Two statutes, two different questions

Read together, the two accounts may be describing the same conversation from either side of a single legal question: whether Walker has officially resigned, or whether the party may begin looking for a successor before she has. Kansas law treats those as separate questions, and different statutes answer each. The party’s statement cites the two that govern filling the vacancy; a third governs how a county officer resigns in the first place.

K.S.A. 19-2606 governs how an elected county officer resigns. It requires a written notice filed in the office of whoever is authorized to fill the vacancy — for a county clerk, the governor — plus a copy to the county election officer, and it must state the effective date. Walker’s published statement does give an effective date. What has not happened is the filing.

K.S.A. 25-3902 governs when the party may act. It gives the county chair 21 days from “receipt of notice that the vacancy has occurred or will occur” to convene a convention of precinct committeemen and committeewomen, who elect someone for the governor to appoint. The tense is future. The statute sets no form for that notice, and nothing in it makes a completed 19-2606 filing a precondition.

So both things can be true at once: that Walker’s resignation is not yet complete, and that the party’s clock had already started. Neither statute ties one to the other, and an official weighing whether a resignation is final could reasonably land somewhere different from one weighing when a party’s 21 days begin.

What is not in dispute

Walker announced a resignation on Aug. 10, effective Aug. 31, and a written statement was published the following day. No letter had reached the governor as of late Saturday morning, Aug. 15. The Secretary of State’s election director first cleared the party to begin and later told it to stop. That reversal followed his conversation with Walker. The party’s statement says it does not hold the election director at fault.

What happens next

The party says it “remains prepared to follow the law the moment formal notice is properly filed.” Filing a letter would not by itself create a vacancy. Walker gave notice ahead of time and set her last day as Aug. 31, so she remains the clerk until that date either way — including Monday afternoon, when she helps conduct the county canvass that certifies the Aug. 4 primary.

Walker told commissioners on Aug. 10 that Deputy Clerk Michael Hoyt would fill the office until a clerk is appointed.

Fort Scott Biz