A five-dollar gift card at a Leavenworth County voter-registration drive raises bigger questions about leadership, accountability, and the standards we choose to follow.
Five dollars isn’t much money anymore. It might get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks, depending on what you order. Most of us wouldn’t give it a second thought.
But what happens when that five dollars is offered to a high school student in exchange for registering to vote?
That’s the question behind a controversy here in Leavenworth County. And the more I look at it, the more I believe the real issue reaches beyond a gift card, an election, or a political organization.
It’s about whether we are willing to hold ourselves to the same standards we expect everyone else to follow.
It Started With a Gift Card
Back in May, the League of Women Voters of Leavenworth County conducted voter-registration drives at Lansing and Leavenworth high schools. The goal was to encourage young people to participate in the election process.
That’s a worthwhile goal. Young adults should understand how their government works, why their vote matters, and what responsibilities come with citizenship.
But there was a problem.
Photographs from the events showed a sign advertising a $5 Starbucks gift card for students who registered to vote.
In September, Kansas state representative Pat Proctor raised concerns about those incentives. Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach subsequently sent a cease-and-desist letter to the local and state League of Women Voters organizations, directed the preservation of records, and requested information about the gift cards.
The national League responded by saying its Kansas leadership was cooperating with the inquiry and reaffirmed its commitment to following election laws.
Now, I want to be careful here. An investigation is not a conviction. We shouldn’t pretend we know what investigators will ultimately conclude. And there is no reason to turn the students involved into targets of criticism.
But we don’t need a final court ruling to have a serious conversation about the leadership decisions that brought us here.
Good Intentions Don’t Give Us Permission to Ignore the Rules
I’ve spent much of my adult life in environments where good intentions weren’t enough.
In the Army, you could have a good mission, motivated people, and a plan that looked great on paper. That didn’t relieve you of the responsibility to understand the rules, assess the risks, and make sure the people executing the plan knew what they were doing.
A leader couldn’t simply say, “We were trying to do something good,” when someone questioned how the mission was carried out.
Intentions mattered. So did execution.
I see the same principle in this voter-registration controversy.
Encouraging young people to register is not the problem. Helping them understand their rights and responsibilities is something we ought to support.
The concern begins when participation becomes connected to a financial reward.
Federal law places restrictions on paying people to register or vote in covered elections. Whether a particular action violates that law requires examining the actual facts and circumstances. That determination belongs to the appropriate legal authorities.
But the leadership responsibility begins well before a lawyer or investigator gets involved.
Someone has to ask whether an incentive is appropriate. Someone has to understand the rules. Someone has to explain those rules to the people running the event.
And when a concern surfaces, someone has to take responsibility for getting to the truth.
That’s not unreasonable. That’s leadership.
The Standard Has to Apply Even When We Like the Mission
Here’s where I think we need to examine ourselves.
It is easy to demand accountability when an organization we disagree with makes a questionable decision.
We want answers. We want consequences. We want people held responsible.
But what happens when the organization shares our values, supports our causes, or pursues an objective we believe in?
Do we apply the same standard?
Or do we start explaining away the decision because we approve of the goal?
That is where public trust begins to break down.
I don’t care whether the organization is conservative, liberal, religious, secular, nonprofit, or part of the government. The responsibility to operate lawfully and honestly doesn’t change with the name on the door.
And that includes organizations and causes I support.
If we only demand accountability from people we disagree with, we aren’t defending a standard. We’re defending a side.
I believe leaders owe people something better than that.
What Are We Teaching the Next Generation?
There is another part of this story that matters to me as a father.
These were high school students. Young people who are beginning to understand what citizenship, responsibility, and personal decisions mean.
I want my children to grow up knowing that their decisions matter. I want them to understand the importance of participating in their communities, asking questions, and making informed choices.
But I also want them to understand that responsibility isn’t something we practice only when it’s convenient.
If we want young people to respect the election process, we have to show them that the process itself deserves respect.
We should be teaching them why voting matters, not making the decision about what they receive for signing a form.
And we should show them what accountability looks like when adults make decisions that raise legitimate questions.
That lesson will probably outlast the five-dollar gift card.
Trust Is Built Before Something Goes Wrong
Trust doesn’t begin when someone gets caught making a mistake. It begins long before that, in the decisions nobody is paying attention to.
Leaders build trust when they take time to understand the rules instead of assuming everything will work out.
Teams strengthen that trust when people can raise concerns without being dismissed.
The person responsible strengthens it by examining a decision instead of immediately defending it.
And we protect trust by acknowledging that a worthy mission doesn’t make every method acceptable.
As a Christian, I believe integrity is more than avoiding consequences. It’s about doing what is right before God, including when nobody is watching and when doing the right thing costs us something.
That obligation doesn’t disappear because we believe our cause is righteous.
In fact, the more important the cause, the more carefully we ought to handle the responsibility entrusted to us.
Five Dollars Isn’t the Point
I don’t know how the investigation will ultimately end. The authorities should examine the evidence, the organizations involved should have an opportunity to answer the questions, and conclusions should follow the facts.
But I know this much.
Public trust is difficult to build and easy to damage. Sometimes all it takes is a small decision that nobody stopped to question.
Five dollars may seem insignificant.
The standard behind the decision isn’t.
And if we want our children, our communities, and the next generation of leaders to respect the rules, we have to demonstrate that respect ourselves.
Because leadership isn’t measured only by what we’re trying to accomplish. It’s also measured by what we’re willing to do, and what we refuse to compromise, along the way.
Sources and Case Record
These reports and documents provide the factual context for this commentary. The investigation is described as an inquiry, not a finding of guilt.