by Mary Rupert
Early voting begins Saturday, July 27, at three locations in Wyandotte County for the primary election, according to Election Commissioner Bruce Newby.
Election Day will be Aug. 6 for the primary, and the polls that day will be open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
Early voting will take place at three locations before the election, including the Wyandotte County Election Office, 850 State Ave.; Joe Amayo-Argentine Community Center, 2810 Metropolitan Ave.; and Eisenhower Recreation Center, 2901 N. 72nd St.
The hours and days for the early voting locations:
The Wyandotte County Election Office, 850 State Ave.
10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, July 27;
8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday, July 29, through Friday, Aug. 2;
10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 3;
8 a.m. to noon Monday, Aug. 5.
Joe Amayo-Argentine Recreation Center, 2810 Metropolitan Ave.
10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, July 27;
10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 3.
Eisenhower Recreation Center, 2901 N. 72nd St.
10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, July 27;
10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 3.
Voting by mail also is available for Wyandotte County residents. So far, the election office has sent out 3,446 mail ballots, and 1,242 have been returned, he said. Mail ballots started going out July 17 to voters who requested them.
Residents have until July 30 to request a mail ballot from the election office, he said.
While mail ballots so far have a good return, about 33 percent, on Election Day Newby said he thinks it will be good to get a 15 percent turnout of registered voters.
Part of the reason is there are not a lot of contested races on the primary ballot this year.
Newby said the primary election has only six contests this year, three for Unified Government Commission and three for the Board of Public Utilities. They include:
• The UG Commission at large, District 1, where the candidates are incumbent Melissa Brune Bynum, Mark Gilstrap and Steven James;
• UG Commission, District 3, where the candidates are incumbent Ann Murguia, Mary V. Gerlt and Christian A. Ramirez;
• UG Commission District 4, where the candidates are incumbent Harold Johnson, Jorge Luis Flores and Tarence L.Maddox;
• The Board of Public Utilities at large, position 3, where the candidates are incumbent Norman D. Scott, Chiquita C. Coggs, David Haley, Rose Mulvany Henry, Melissa Oropeza-Vail, and Faith L. Rivera;
• The BPU, District 1, where the candidates are incumbent Robert “Bob” Milan, Ken Snyder and LaRon Thompson;
• The BPU, District 3, where the candidates are incumbent Jeff Bryant, Aaron Coleman, Dustin K. Dye and Stan S. Frownfelter.
Not all six contests will be on everyone’s ballot. On the ballot where he lives, there will only be two contests, one from the UG Commission and one from the BPU, he added.
In Bonner Springs and Edwardsville, there are no contests on the ballot, he added.
With voters anticipating the small number of contests on their ballots, it becomes difficult to motivate them to get out to vote, he said.
“The people who have to motivate them are the candidates themselves,” he said.
“In a primary with low turnout, it’s anybody’s game,” he said. “The candidates need to be turning their people out.”
While he would love to have a 30 percent voter turnout, they almost never have that level in a primary election, he added.
Voters who go to the advance voting sites at Eisenhower and the Amayo-Argentine centers will be voting on touch screens, he said.
Voters who go to the polls on Election Day, Aug. 6, should go to their assigned polling place, Newby said. Each voter’s household has been sent a postcard in the mail telling the location of their polling place and the details of early voting.
While it is true that a law has passed the Legislature allowing voters to vote at any polling place in their county, that law is not in effect yet here and it is at the county election officer’s discretion, he said.
The secretary of state will be writing rules and regulations for the new law, and before any county can change and offer voting at different places on Election Day, they will have to wait until the regulations are issued, he said. The rules are expected to be published by the secretary of state next year, he said.
In 2020 it still will be at the discretion of each county election officer, he said.
Currently, Newby said he couldn’t offer Election Day voting at places other than the voter’s polling place, except at the main Election Office, because he can’t offer 115 paper ballot styles at each polling place. Voters would have to use touch screens, and there are not enough touch screens currently for the entire county, he said, without long lines for voters waiting in some places to use the machines.
Potentially, voters could go to the polls with “any place” voting and see 500 people lined up to use two touch screens, he said. Lawmakers also decided each voter can spend 10 minutes at each voting booth, so the capacity of one voting machine potentially could be low if voters take all of the allotted time. They may take more time at the general election this year, he added, as there will be a long constitutional amendment on the ballot in November to change the way nonresident military and nonresident students are counted, and some voters will take some time reading through the amendment.
Newby said he felt that if he doesn’t have new equipment, including more touch screen voting machines, he can’t do the “any place” voting. New equipment expenditures would have to be approved by the UG.
Candidates have appeared at several forums held throughout Wyandotte County prior to the primary election. To see one of the forums that was sponsored by Kansas City Kansas Community College and Business West, visit the KCKCC cable television channel, or go to https://www.youtube.com/user/KCECable.
Election stories from the Wyandotte Daily are found under the tab https://wyandotteonline.com/category/election-2019/.
Those who have questions may find more voting information available at the Election Commission’s website at www.wycovotes.org, at www.wycokck.org/election, by email at [email protected] and from the office at 913-573-8500.