Two Florida residents have been sentenced to prison after admitting they forged Kansas voters' signatures while working as paid petition circulators for a 2023 drive to get No Labels recognized as an official political party in the state. George E. Andrews, 32, and Jamie L. Johnson, 49, both of Dade City, Florida, each pleaded guilty to one count of election perjury and two counts of election forgery, and each received a 14-month prison sentence that was suspended, with 18 months of probation.
The Kansas Attorney General's Office announced the convictions, saying Andrews and Johnson admitted to forging the signatures of two victims apiece on official election petitions. As reported by the Kansas City Star, Andrews was originally charged with two counts of election perjury and 28 counts of election forgery, while Johnson faced 18 counts of election forgery and one count of election perjury before their plea agreements led prosecutors to dismiss the remaining counts. Johnson pleaded guilty in January and was sentenced on March 25, while Andrews entered his plea in July.
Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach framed the case as a matter of basic election integrity, saying state law requires petition circulators to tell the truth under oath and collect only genuine signatures of qualified electors. According to the same account, Kobach said the defendants submitted false affidavits and put other people's names on official election petitions. Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab referred the cases to the Attorney General's Office, which investigated them through special agents before charges were filed.
A Petition Drive With National Roots
The forged signatures were collected during the 2023 push to secure official recognition of No Labels Kansas as a political party, a drive that succeeded — the party was officially recognized in Kansas in January 2024. That success came despite scrutiny of the paid signature-gathering operation: in neighboring Johnson County, election officials reviewed and rejected 1,784 signatures, about 22% of everything gathered for the party there, due to validity issues, according to the Johnson County Post.
Kansas law requires a new political party to collect valid signatures equal to at least 2% of the total votes cast in the state's preceding gubernatorial election, meaning No Labels needed more than 20,000 valid signatures statewide, per the Kansas Reflector. No Labels Kansas ultimately qualified as a party.
Florida Arrests and Extradition
Andrews had been in custody in Florida since February 2024, while Johnson was arrested in Nebraska in May 2024; both were initially held on $150,000 bail pending extradition to Johnson County District Court, the Associated Press reported.
Petition fraud tied to No Labels wasn't limited to Kansas and Florida. In Rhode Island, Jamestown officials referred petition papers to police after handwriting discrepancies were flagged, while Cranston officials flagged signatures of deceased residents, according to The Kansas Informer.
No Labels' National Collapse and Kansas Exit
The petition drive was part of a much larger national effort. No Labels pursued a third-party unity ticket for the 2024 presidential race and had secured ballot access in 21 states before abandoning the campaign in April 2024 after failing to recruit a prominent candidate with a viable path to victory, according to CBS News.
That collapse eventually reached Kansas directly. No Labels Kansas asked the Secretary of State's Office to terminate its status as an officially recognized political party in May 2026, and the office formally granted that request on May 18, 2026, ending a status the party had held since January 2024.
Kansas' Unusual Prosecutorial Power
The case also highlights a legal tool unique to Kansas. State lawmakers in 2015 granted the state's election executives independent authority to criminally prosecute election fraud, making Kansas the only state at the time with that kind of standalone executive prosecutorial power, according to KCUR.
