Category: Election 2020

More than 15,000 apply for advance voting in Wyandotte County

‘Get your application in now,’ election commissioner says

The Wyandotte County Election Office has received thousands of applications for advance ballots for the Nov. 3 general election, according to Election Commissioner Bruce Newby.

As of last Thursday, the office had received 15,680 applications for advance ballots, he said at the Unified Government Commission meeting Sept. 17. Last week, the staff was processing more than 1,500 ballot applications a day, he added.

There has been an effort to encourage more people to vote by mail to reduce the risk of spreading COVID-19 this year.

“I am concerned that we get enough people that will vote an advance ballot by mail,” Newby said.

He would like to see the 15,000 advance ballot number double, he added.

It needs to double to hold down the number of people who will show up to the polls on Election Day, he said. It’s important because they have to practice social distancing, and that will automatically create longer lines and longer wait times, because they can’t let everyone into the polling place at once, he said.

“Please vote by mail, because that is going to be your safest and cleanest option,” he said. “Just get it done early.”

Newby said the election office will do a mass mailing on Oct. 14 to all who have applied for an advance ballot. The deadline to apply for an advance ballot is Oct. 28, he added.

“I will caveat that with, don’t wait ‘til the deadline,” Newby said.

The post office’s delivery standard is three to five days. If voters wait until Oct. 28 to submit their application, and it gets to the Election Office on Oct. 30 or 31, it could be a physical impossibility that everyone would get their ballot back in the return mail by Election Day, he added.

“So if you want to make sure when you vote by mail that you get your ballot on time and you’re able to return it on time, the only way to do it is don’t wait until the deadline,” Newby said. “Get your application in now, and the sooner the better.”

The deadline was last Saturday to mail ballots to military and overseas civilians, he said. There were 79 by last Thursday.

Wyandotte County will offer advance voting by mail and in person, as well as voting on Election Day, Nov. 3.

The Election Office has been getting a lot of questions about letters with advance ballot applications inside sent to all voters in Wyandotte County, he said. One of these mailings had a return address of Missouri.

Newby said his office and the Kansas secretary of state’s office is not responsible for what the letter says, but the application is the correct one. As long as it’s sent to the Election Office at 850 State, and they receive it, the voter should receive an advance ballot by mail. Voters must be registered to vote to receive a ballot.

“The only thing I would caution voters to make sure they check, is the return address is our office and not going back to the person that is mailed it to them,” he said. There are people who are trying to harvest voter information for the purposes of identity theft, he added. County election officers in the state felt like they had been blindsided by the letter, not knowing about it in advance.

Voters may access an advance ballot application on the wycovotes.org website. The advance voting application is online at the wycovotes.org website, at https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56606b47e4b0b9403ad6ff96/t/5e822c2a0b944f71c53d5115/1585589290815/AV1+Mail+2020+GENERAL.pdf

Returning an advance ballot

When the voter receives an advance ballot by mail, the voter can return it by mail, or also can return it on Election Day to any Wyandotte County polling place, he said.

When returning it by mail, the ballot must be postmarked by Election Day and received by the election office by Nov. 6.

The advance ballot also may be returned to the Election Office as long as it is received by 7 p.m. on Election Day, he said.

Newby said the Election Office is working on getting two drop boxes for ballots. The Kansas secretary of state, who is in charge of elections, has ordered two drop boxes for each county, and they are due for delivery by the third week of October, Newby said.

He said he hopes they will in fact have the drop boxes. The current plan is for the drop boxes to be located at the Election Office at 850 State Ave., where the voter can just drop them off in the drop boxes and not have to come inside, he said. If a voter puts the ballot into the dropbox (not the mailbox) in front of the Election Office, no postage will be required, he said. A stamp is required for ballots dropped into the mail.

Voters also may deliver the advance ballot in person to any polling place by 7 p.m. on Election Day, Nov. 3, he said.

There are three signature statements on the ballot, he said. The first is the voter statement. A second statement on the ballot needs to be signed if someone else returns the ballot for them to the polling place. A third statement, for those assisting voters, is for people who have permanent disabilities and are unable to sign their own ballots.

Three sites for early voting in person

Newby said there are three locations for early voting: the Election Office, Eisenhower Recreation Center and Joe Amayo Argentine Recreation Center. The three sites will give voters 156 hours for advance voting, he said.

Advance voting will begin at the Election Office on Oct. 20 and at Eisenhower Recreation Center on Oct. 20. At Amayo – Argentine Recreation Center, it will start Oct. 24, he said.

The reason for the different start times is that in advance voting for the primary election at Argentine, only around 10 people or so showed up the first week, he added. It’s not cost effective to have it at Argentine is no more show up than that, he added. He adjusted the voting hours accordingly, he added.

Voters may go to the Election Office or to Eisenhower on Oct. 20, then when Argentine opens Oct. 24, they may go there, he added.

On Election Day, polls will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., Newby said. There will be 27 polling places open in Wyandotte County, he added, with voters going to their assigned locations.

The sample ballots will be posted online on Voter View on or after Oct. 15, he said.

75 election workers needed

Newby said there are 75 election workers needed for the fall elections at Wyandotte County polling places.

Training will begin on Oct. 5, and those who are interested in being an election worker need to apply soon, he added.

Election workers make $9.01 an hour, he said, and they work around 14 hours on Election Day, and also are paid for the time in training.

More information and an application for the election worker position is available at https://wycovotes.org/election-workers-1.

Turnout usually high in presidential election years

Federal and state offices, including the presidential race, U.S. Senate and House, and Kansas Senate and House races, are on the Nov. 3 ballot, along with judicial positions.

Newby didn’t make a prediction on how many voters would turn out in the fall elections, but he cited some past statistics. In 2016, Wyandotte County had a 63 percent turnout in the general election, a presidential year. There was a 51 percent turnout in 2018, which was not a presidential election, and a 64 percent turnout in 2008, also a presidential election, he said.

In the primary election, 17,353 Democratic voters and 6,428 of all Republican voters cast a ballot. It was 45 percent of the registered Democrats and 46 percent of the registered Republicans, he said.

Among the active registered voters in Kansas are 38,666 Democratic, 24,041 unaffiliated, 14,009 Republican and 641 Libertarian voters, he said.

For the primary election, there were over 11,616 advance ballots requested, with a return rate of about 93 percent, Newby said.

The voter registration deadline is Tuesday, Oct. 13. An online voter registration form is at https://www.kdor.ks.gov/Apps/VoterReg/Default.aspx.

The UG meeting is online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1O0o2cP_Vw

The advance voting application is online at the wycovotes.org website, at https://static1.squarespace.com/static/56606b47e4b0b9403ad6ff96/t/5e822c2a0b944f71c53d5115/1585589290815/AV1+Mail+2020+GENERAL.pdf

The Wyandotte County Election Office is at wycovotes.org or www.wycokck.org/election, telephone 913-573-8500 or email [email protected].

The Kansas secretary of state’s office is at www.kssos.org.

The VoterView website, which can tell a voter if he or she is registered, and show a sample ballot, is at https://myvoteinfo.voteks.org.

Senate candidates differ on handling Supreme Court vacancy

Not surprisingly, two very different ways of handling the vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court were offered by Kansas candidates for the U.S. Senate in a debate today.

U.S. Rep. Roger Marshall, the Republican candidate, said they need to confirm conservative constitutionalist pro-life judges, and he is in favor of bringing forward a candidate early. He said the situation is different from 2016, when there was a Democratic president and a Republican Senate. Republicans in the Senate held up Obama’s candidate for the Supreme Court until after the election in 2016.

This is the Republicans’ time to move forward now and keep their promises, Marshall said in the debate.

Barbara Bollier, the Democratic candidate for Senate, said the nomination and confirmation process should not be politicized. She said the leaders who are elected to the Senate in November should be making the decision on it.

The Senate has plenty to do with pandemic relief in the meantime, she said.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg died on Friday, and the topic of her successor has already been discussed by the president and others.

Notably, the candidates seemed to go negative quite often in their remarks Saturday. They also are running negative campaign ads. According to the website FiveThirtyEight, polls in August have shown only two percentage points between the candidates, not enough for a definitive lead. However, the website said Marshall had an 80 percent chance of winning the seat, while Democrats were slightly favored to win the entire Senate.

Marshall frequently called attention to the fact that Bollier switched from the Republican to the Democratic Party, while Bollier countered with the statement that she is an independent thinker who can work across the aisle with others, saying Marshall is “a yes man for the president.” Marshall mentioned he had the endorsement of Sen. Pat Roberts, who is retiring, while Bollier mentioned she had the endorsement of former Republican Sen. Nancy Landon Kassebaum.

The debate, held by WIBW, the Kansas Radio Networks and Kansas Ag Network, was a virtual event that replaced the usual debate held at the Kansas State Fair, which is not in operation this year because of the pandemic.

Marshall and Bollier are doctors. In response to a question about the federal response to the coronavirus, Bollier said the challenges faced are historic, and nothing but historic actions would overcome them. She said there is a need to extend unemployment benefits, make sure people have the ability to pay rent and offer additional assistance in other areas.

She said she was very disappointed in the federal response to the vaccine, of politicizing it. She looks forward to an FDA-approved vaccine. She said the way to get through the pandemic was to follow science, wear a mask, follow public health advice, and when the vaccine is here, move forward and keep the economy going.

Marshall said the vice president was very optimistic a vaccine would be available by Thanksgiving, and for the rest of the public, by the new year. He said America has cut the mortality rate and is winning the war against an invisible enemy.

Bollier countered that she was disappointed to see a doctor more concerned about his own political health than the health of the people of Kansas. She mentioned he had been at events, where he had not been wearing a mask, and he had been at indoor events in large groups.

In answer to a question about to what extent wealthy white people like themselves would strive to understand the motivations of Black Lives Matter activists and represent their views in Washington, Marshall said, “I’m one of the luckiest, most privileged people in the world. I’m privileged because my parents worked their tails off. My dad worked 80-100 hours a week as a police officer. My mom worked 40 or 50 hours a week as a clerical clerk, and then came home and took care of her family as well.

“I don’t know what’s going on in the coasts but I know what’s going on in Kansas, that I was taught to value a person by their heart, and even more important, by their actions, and I think I taught my kids that same purpose,” Marshall said. “If you look at my record, I just don’t see skin color. I think there’s things we can do to improve everybody’s relationships and it all starts with good education and a good economy, and that’s what Republicans stand for, is raising people out of poverty, giving them a job that brings meaning and fulfillment in their lives, not keeping them buried down in the ghettos. So I’m all for lifting other people up.”

Bollier said, “This country has been in a crisis for many years, and we know we need to listen to all. We need to keep our communities safe in that time, and we need to look to things that actually make a difference for people. One of those is public education. I’m a long-time champion for public education in Kansas. I stood up to Sam Brownback when he tried to dismantle our early childhood education system, which is so needed for all people to be successful.

“I voted for some of the very largest funding increases to the classroom in Kansas history,” Bollier, who served as a state senator, said. “I worked across the aisle to do these things and end the Sam Brownback tax experiment, so that everyone had an opportunity for a world-class opportunity, no matter what their Zip Code, no matter where they live.”

She said Marshall had not voted for relief for schools during the coronavirus crisis, and Marshall responded that there was not one Democrat who voted in favor of a coronavirus bill in the Senate last week that would have helped schools. The candidates often said their opponent was not representing their views correctly.

On the topic of abortion, Bollier says she’s for a woman’s right to have access to reproductive health care, and Marshall is pro-life. The debate discussed many other issues, including the plight of rural hospitals, the Green New Deal (which Bollier said she did not support), legalized marijuana and the federal budget.

An advisory to those who want to watch the debate: there is a considerable amount of time spent on agricultural policy questions. The debate is on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7xBEwAdXwI.

State legislative candidates to speak at Democratic group meeting Saturday

State legislative candidates will speak at the Wyandotte County Democratic Breakfast Zoom meeting at 9 a.m. Saturday, Sept. 19.

Among those who may speak at the meeting are Jeff Pittman, a Democratic candidate running for the State Senate, Fifth District, and Rep. Stan Frownfelter, D-37th Dist., an incumbent who is running as a write-in candidate in the general election.

Other Democratic state legislators in Wyandotte County also may speak.

Also, the group expects to hear from the campaigns of Rep. Sharice Davids, D-3rd Dist., and Barbara Bollier for U.S. Senate.

The meeting for Democrats will be on Zoom at https://zoom.us/j/97883231932. The meeting also is available by telephone at 312-626-6799 (long distance may apply), and the meeting ID number is 978 8323 1932.