A 25.9 percent total voter turnout has been seen at the polls in Wyandotte County through 12:30 p.m. on Election Day, Tuesday, Aug. 4, according to Election Commissioner Bruce Newby.
Newby said 8,535 mail ballots have come back so far, which is added to 2,121 early voters in person and 4,521 voters in person at the polling places through 12:30 p.m. today, for a total of 15,177 votes so far.
There are a total of 58,546 registered Democrats and Republicans eligible to vote in the primary here, he said.
Early this morning, there was good activity at each polling place, but not on the level that they will expect at the general election, he added. None of the polling places was overwhelmed.
The polling places are practicing social distancing and taking other health precautionary measures.
Many voters opted for mail ballots this year because of the potential risk of COVID-19, Newby confirmed.
The election office sent out 11,616 mail ballots, with an 80 percent return on them so far, he said. Voters who have received mail ballots may fill them out and drop them off at any polling place today before 7 p.m. They also can mail them back, if they can get a Tuesday postmark on them. The mailed ballots will have to be received in the mail at the election office by Friday.
In the past, only about 50 percent of those who received a mail ballot here actually voted, he added. The higher return this time showed that people were genuinely motivated to vote, he added.
Of those who showed up in person to vote today, most of them were wearing masks on their own, Newby said. However, because of the nature of the election and the constitutional right to vote, the election office cannot prevent anybody from voting, whether they have a mask on or not, he said. Election workers will not be requiring anyone to wear a mask.
“We hope they would protect themselves with a mask,” he added. While not allowed to require voters to wear a mask, he still has a personal opinion about it. He hoped that if a person was experiencing symptoms or was positive for COVID-19, that person would have asked for a ballot by mail. If they show up at the polling place, not wearing a mask and are symptomatic, they would have just exposed all the election workers, and the average age of an election worker is 72, he said.
“One of the things that is amazing to me, with all the things we’ve read lately about COVID-19 rates at Wyandotte County and the KC metro, we still have too many people not taking this seriously,” Newby said.
The election office provided masks for all the election workers, but it didn’t have the budget to provide 80,000 voters with a mask, he added.
They are giving a pen to voters who are voting in person this year. The voters use a pen to sign the poll book and also to fill out their ballots, and they can keep the pen this year, he said. It is not being shared among voters because of health risks. Also, voters who choose to vote on touch screens are being given a disposable Q-tip on a long stick, he added.
Because there might still be some ballots in the mail, the results that are announced tonight will be unofficial, he said. Final unofficial results will be announced on Friday, and official results will be announced after the voter canvass Aug. 17, he added.
Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. today, Aug. 4, for the primary election.
Registered voters may go to their assigned polling places and cast their ballots in the primary.
Those who vote in person will see social distancing and safety measures at the polls this year.
Voters may check their polling places and whether they are registered to vote at the Voter View website at https://myvoteinfo.voteks.org/voterview. They may also call the Wyandotte County Election Office at 913-573-8500 or visit wycovotes.org.
Mail ballots must be postmarked by Tuesday, Aug. 4, and received by the election office in the mail by Friday, or they can be dropped off in person at any polling place while polls are open on Tuesday, Election Day.
The balance of power may shift in the Kansas Statehouse depending on whether conservative Republicans can win back legislative seats lost to GOP moderates in 2016.
State Sen. John Skubal of Overland Park, seen here on the Kansas Senate floor on the final night of the 2020 session, is one of several moderate Republicans facing primary challenges from more conservative Republicans. (Photo by Jim McLean, Kansas News Service)
by Jim McLean, Kansas News Service
Topeka, Kansas — Control of the Kansas Legislature could turn on dozens of down-ballot races in the Aug. 4 primary election, in which many of the contests, particularly for the Kansas Senate, pit conservative Republicans against moderate incumbents.
In Republican Senate primaries, moderates facing their first re-election test since 2016 can no longer use former Gov. Sam Brownback as a foil. And while taxes remain an issue, two perhaps counterintuitive issues are at the core of this year’s legislative contests: Medicaid expansion and abortion.
“Medicaid expansion definitely hinges on this election and there’s no doubt that women’s reproductive rights also hinge on this election,” said Michael Poppa, executive director of the Mainstream Coaltion, a Johnson County group formed in the 1990s to counter “extremism” in politics.
Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly and a majority of lawmakers support expanding Medicaid health care coverage to hundreds of thousands of low-income Kansans. But conservative Republicans refused to bring the issue to a vote in the 2020 legislative session because lawmakers didn’t agree to put a proposed constitutional amendment on abortion before Kansas voters.
The amendment was a priority for anti-abortion groups seeking to counter a 2019 Kansas Supreme Court ruling that said abortion is a protected right under the Kansas Constitution.
And the proposed amendment’s defeat is at the heart of Republican primary battles across the state.
The Senate and the chamber
The race between Sen. John Skubal and conservative challenger Rep. Kellie Warren is among the most closely watched in the primary.
Skubal, a moderate from Overland Park, defeated conservative Jeff Melcher in 2016 by calling for the repeal of tax cuts that triggered a budget crisis under Brownback.
The Mainstream Coalition, the Kansas National Education Association and Stand Up Blue Valley are backing Skubal’s bid for re-election.
Warren, in addition to the anti-abortion group Kansans for Life, has the support of the Kansas Chamber of Commerce, a powerful group that includes Koch Industries among its most influential members.
For the chamber, though, taxes and regulations, not abortion, are most important. President Alan Cobb said in a recent column published in the Topeka Capital-Journal that the organization is backing conservative challengers because current members of the legislature have not reduced taxes on some companies doing business in Kansas.
“We need legislative champions who understand the fundamental role that business plays in the economic health of Kansas,” Cobb wrote.
Recent changes in federal tax laws, Cobb said, raised state taxes for some individuals and companies by a combined total of more than $1 billion. Kelly vetoed attempts to roll back some of those increases, and Republican leaders could not muster the votes to override her.
“These actions are not reflective of what most Kansans want from their state elected leaders,” Cobb wrote.
The chamber and other conservative groups are most active in state senate races because it is their first opportunity to retake seats lost to moderates in the “anti-Brownback election” of 2016, University of Kansas political scientist Patrick Miller said.
“Conservatives are very much on the offensive,” Miller said, adding that it’s an open question whether moderates can withstand the challenge “without the boogeyman of Sam Brownback to run against.”
The chamber is backing challenges to incumbents in seven GOP Senate primaries. In addition to the Skubal-Warren race, those are:
• Michael Fagg vs. Sen. Bruce Givens in a district that includes portions of seven counties in southeast Kansas. • Virgil Peck, a former member of the Kansas House, vs. Sen. Dan Goddard in a district that covers the three southeast Kansas counties of Labette, Montgomery and Neosho. Goddard defeated Peck by fewer than 200 votes in the 2016 primary. • Rep. J.R. Claeys vs. Sen. Randall Hardy in a district dominated by the city of Salina. Claeys, a four-term member of the Kansas House, managed Republican Kris Kobach’s 2018 gubernatorial campaign. • Rep. Alicia Straub vs. Sen. Mary Jo Taylor in a district that covers all or some of 11 southwest Kansas counties. • Mark Steffen vs. Sen. Ed Berger, the former president of Hutchinson Community College, in a district that covers all of Reno County and part of Kingman County. • Lon Pishny vs. Sen. John Doll in a district that includes Garden City and covers all or part of 11 counties in southwest Kansas. Doll briefly left the Republican Party in 2018 to run for lieutenant governor alongside independent gubernatorial candidate Greg Orman.
Double trouble for moderates?
The moderate/conservative dynamic is in play in a Johnson County district that covers parts of Overland Park, Merriam and Shawnee. Conservative Republican Mike Thompson is trying to hold off a challenge from moderate two-term Rep. Tom Cox.
Thompson, a former TV weatherman, was selected to replace former Sen. Mary Pilcher Cook when she resigned in January with a year left in her third term.
Another member of the Kobach circle faces a challenger in the Topeka-heavy 20th District. Conservative Sen. Eric Rucker was a former top aide to the ex-secretary of state and was selected to fill the remainder of former Sen. Vicki Schmidt’s term when she was elected insurance commissioner in 2018. Rucker is being challenged by moderate Rep. Brenda Dietrich, the former superintendent of the Auburn-Washburn School District.
Dietrich, like many other moderate Republicans, is getting support from American Energy Action, a political action committee formed just this month by companies that operate wind farms in Kansas.
Conservatives are also running to unseat moderate incumbents in a handful of Kansas House races, including a Johnson County district that includes parts of Leawood and Overland Park.
Rep. Jan Kessinger was one of four Republicans whose vote against the proposed constitutional amendment on abortion kept it from passing. And while he has the support of the KNEA, Stand Up Blue Valley and the Mainstream Coalition, challenger Jane Dirks has the backing of the state chamber and Kansans for Life.
The 8th House District is another pivotal race in Overland Park and Olathe. Republican Rep. Chris Croft was elected in 2018 and has endorsements from the chamber and Kansans for Life. His opponent, Clay Norkey, is backed by the same organizations supporting other moderates.
Moderate Republicans are facing a dual threat, said Miller, the KU political scientist. They are vulnerable to conservatives in the primary, especially in rural districts, and to suburban Democrats in the November general election.
Depending on how things play out, Miller said, the legislature could end up “more Democratic, but also more conservative.”
Jim McLean is the senior correspondent for the Kansas News Service is a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and High Plains Public Radio focused on health, the social determinants of health and their connection to public policy. You can reach him on Twitter @jmcleanks or email jim (at) kcur (dot) org. Kansas News Service stories and photos may be republished by news media at no cost with proper attribution and a link to ksnewsservice.org.
