Advance voting numbers are up in Wyandotte County, according to Unified Government officials.
Mike Taylor, a Unified Government spokesman, said advance voting as of Thursday, Nov. 3, had reached about 22 percent.
More than 16,000 people voted in advance, with about 8,000 in person and about 7,000 by mail, he said. Usually, there are about 5,000 total ballots cast in advance voting here, he said.
That suggests a lot of interest in the election. Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.
Statewide, Secretary of State Kris Kobach on Thursday predicted about 1.3 million people would turn out to vote in the general election this year. That is about a 72 percent turnout.
If turnout is that high, it would be the highest percentage of registered voters since 1996.
Advance voting in Kansas was up from 2012, according to the secretary of state’s office. There were 197,133 advance ballots mailed to voters who requested them statewide. The voter registration deadline has already passed, and was Oct. 18.
Moderates make effort to win more seats in Legislature
Taylor said at the Nov. 3 UG meeting that there are expected to be at least 13 new state senators out of 40, and at least 33 new state representatives in the House.
The makeup of the Legislature will be more moderate than it has been in recent years, he said. That may be a chance to renew partnerships between state and local governments, he said. Some actions in recent years were punitive to local governments, he believes.
Taylor said there would probably be many changes, including a lot of new committee chairpersons. The new legislators will have to deal with difficult issues such as school finance, budget and taxes, he said.
He also said a recent poll from the Docking Institute for Public Affairs showed 57 percent of the voters were dissatisfied with the Legislature and 70 percent thought Kansas was on the wrong path.
Taylor presented a list of UG priorities that will be voted on at a later UG meeting. Medicaid expansion is at the top of the recommended UG’s 2017 priorities. Another top proposed issue for the UG include eliminating a required election for collecting more revenue over the property tax lid, and replacing that election with a protest petition process. He said the current election process is “unworkable” because of its timeline and costs. Also on the UG’s proposed priority list is abandoned housing legislation.
For information about voting and advance voting, see https://wyandotteonline.com/advance-voting-begins-tuesday-in-wyandotte-county/
or http://www.wycovotes.org/
To see who is on the ballot, visithttp://wycokck.org/uploadedFiles/Departments/Election_Office/Sample%20Ballot_General_%202016.pdf
To find your polling place, visit https://myvoteinfo.voteks.org/VoterView/