A higher-than-average voter turnout is expected in Tuesday’s municipal elections in Johnson County.
That’s judging by advance voting numbers so far along with requests for mail-in ballots, county Election Commissioner Fred Sherman said Thursday.
Sherman told Johnson County commissioners this year’s turnout may be near or slightly above 20% – which would be a high point for off-year, midterm elections that usually draw fewer voters than the partisan contests that happen in even years and feature races for state and federal offices.
Turnout in the 2019 city elections was close to 17%, according to the election commission archive.
Sherman said there’s been some improvement in voter turnout for city elections since the Kansas Legislature moved them from April to November, starting in 2017.
Before that, he said, turnout in such odd-year elections averaged below 10% in 2011, 2013 and 2015.
For her part, former county election commissioner Connie Schmidt also expressed her belief that, as in 2020, Johnson County is in for another active election:
Total voter registration goes up
Voter registration in Johnson County has also increased.
The county’s website shows 441,855 registered voters as of September, compared to 434,014 one year ago.
Registration increased by just over 2,000 for Democrats and decreased by 4,974 for Republicans during that period.
Unaffiliated voters, however, showed the biggest increase from a year ago with 10,547 more registered this year than last.
Candidates for city elections this year will not have a party label on the ballot, though some races — most notably the much-watched contest for Overland Park mayor — have hinged, in part, on debates over partisanship.
Advance voting logistics
Sherman told commissioners there have been a “handful” of inquiries about mail-in ballots that have not yet arrived, and his office has issued some replacement ballots.
The county uses the U.S. Postal Service for this, and Sherman said he’s seen delivery times of four or five days. He said people who have requested mail-in ballots but not received them yet can contact his office.
There have been enough poll workers so far, he added.
“We have not been in desperate need, but we could always use more volunteers,” he said.
Advance voting locations and times, ballot drop box sites and other information about voting can be found here.
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