Month: July 2022

Early voting in person starts Saturday, July 23, in Wyandotte County.

Registered voters who want to cast a ballot in person in advance of primary Election Day may vote starting Saturday, July 23, at four locations in Wyandotte County, according to Election Commissioner Michael Abbott.

A new location was added recently, the Kane Community Center, 3130 N. 122nd, to help with early voting, he said.

Other early voting locations include the Wyandotte County Election Office, 850 State Ave., Kansas City, Kansas; the Joe Amayo-Argentine Community Center, 2810 Metropolitan Ave., Kansas City, Kansas; and Eisenhower Recreation Center, 2901 N. 72nd St., Kansas City, Kansas.

All of the early voting locations are open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, July 23. They also are open Monday through Friday, and next Saturday, July 31. For hours, see www.wycovotes.org.

Abbott said the new early voting location at the Kane Community Center will allow voters who live on the west side a closer location for early voting.

Wyandotte County recently has seen an influx of about 1,000 new registered voters since June 24, when the Roe v. Wade decision was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court, Abbott said. Kansas has a constitutional amendment on the ballot that states there is no Kansas constitutional right to abortion and the Legislature has the right to pass laws to regulate abortion.

The day after the announcement of the overturn of Roe v. Wade, Wyandotte County had about 150 new voting applications, and since then until the registration deadline, it was getting 100 or 150 new applications a day, he said. Normally, the election office receives around 20 to 30 new applications a day before an election, he added.

He looked at the numbers after they had about 300 new applications, and around 150 of them were unaffiliated voters, he said, with the other half made up mostly of Democrats, some Republicans and nine or 10 Libertarians.

There were also some duplicate requests, with people trying to make sure they were eligible to vote, he added. Voters who want to check to see if they are registered to vote may either call the election office at 913-573-8500 or visit Voter View online at the Kansas secretary of state’s office, https://myvoteinfo.voteks.org/voterview.

The Voter View website also offers voters a chance to see a sample ballot, with the candidates on their ballot, the state representative district candidates and the wording of the proposed constitutional amendment.

Besides early voting in person, voters may choose to have an advance ballot mailed to them.

According to the election office, the last day to submit an application for an advance voting ballot by mail is Tuesday, July 26. The applications are online at the election office website, https://www.wycovotes.org/news/2022/6/22/qdaro2zj58i3154k66exwmuoau5vcz. Voters should return a mail ballot to any early voting location or Election Day polling place during voting hours, or any mail ballot drop box location by 7 p.m. Aug. 2. They also may be mailed back to the Election Office.

There are three drop box locations for mail ballots this year, Abbott said. These include one at the Election Office at 850 State Ave., Kansas City, Kansas; one at Edwardsville City Hall, 690 S. 4th St., Edwardsville; and one at the West Wyandotte Library, 1737 N. 82nd St., Kansas City, Kansas.

Recently, the Election Office added its own cameras to the drop box locations, he said. While the drop boxes have always had camera surveillance, previously they had piggybacked on the network already there, but had to have special permission to do so, Abbott said. With their own camera system, the Election Office is able to look at the mail drop boxes around the clock, he said.

One mail drop ballot box was eliminated from the former Bonner Springs City Hall location, after there wasn’t an agreement about the cameras, and another one was eliminated at Kansas City, Kansas, City Hall because it was not used very much, he said.

Those using the drop boxes need to put the ballot in the boxes before 7 p.m. on election night, Aug. 2, to count.

Those voters who place their advance ballots in the U.S. mail need to have them postmarked on or before Election Day, Aug. 2. The mailed ballots have to be received by the Election Office up to the Friday after the election, he said.

Those voters who think they are a little late but are sending their ballots through the mail before the Aug. 2 deadline should have the post office postmark it by Aug. 2, and it will be counted up to the Friday after the election, he said.

Voting on Election Day, Aug. 2, is open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. at assigned polling places.

Those who call the Election Office at 913-573-8500 or who visit the VoterView website at https://myvoteinfo.voteks.org/voterview can find out where their polling place is. The Election Office has mailed cards to voters telling them their polling places.

Polling places also are listed at a website, https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56606b47e4b0b9403ad6ff96/t/62d1b4424b9d63344a67fe40/1657910339110/PR2022_Voting_Locations.pdf. Voters are assigned to one of the polling places on Election Day.

More details about early voting locations, their hours and days open, as well as about mail ballots and voting on Election Day, are at wycovotes.org.