by Mary Rupert
Thirteen people tried to vote twice in the general election Nov. 8, and one advance ballot was listed as a deceased voter, according to election officials.
Those votes were among 779 provisional ballots that were not recommended to count today during vote canvassing at the Wyandotte County Election Office.
The 13 who tried to vote twice had voted in advance by mail and tried to vote at the polling place on Election Day, according to Wyandotte County Election Commissioner Bruce Newby. They received a provisional ballot at the polling place, which was not counted today. Newby did not speculate on whether the voters were forgetful.
Most of the 1,960 provisional ballots were recommended to be counted today. No election outcomes will change after the vote canvass is completed today in Wyandotte County, according to Newby.
Canvassing of votes began this morning in Wyandotte County and the Board of Canvassers will reconvene at 4 p.m. today for final certification of the vote, he said.
Newby said there now is an unofficial total of 48,335 votes cast in Wyandotte County, a 61.12 percent turnout.
Newby said about 60 percent of the provisional ballots are being counted.
He said 1,181 provisional ballots were recommended to count, while there were 779 provisional ballots not recommended to count. A total of 1,960 provisional ballots were looked at.
He said half of the provisional ballots that were recommended to count, more than 700, were people who went to the wrong polling place.
Of the 779 ballots that were not recommended to count, 706 of them were not registered to vote, he said.
He said 27 of the ballots that were not recommended to count did not file a voter registration application for an address change.
Seventeen advance mail-in ballots were not counted because the voter affidavit on the back was not signed, he said.
Three of the provisional votes were not counted because the voter failed to provide ID before the canvass.
In Wyandotte County, Hillary Clinton received 61 percent of the vote to President-Elect Donald Trump’s 32 percent, according to the unofficial election results.
The 61 percent turnout for the general election did not beat the 64 percent turnout in Wyandotte County in the 2008 general election, where President Barack Obama was running for president for the first time, he said.
There was better voter turnout in Wyandotte County in the 1990s, he said, and the first two decades of this century seem to be on a downhill slide compared with that.
Newby said when there was a high turnout for advance voting here before Nov. 8, he thought it might be possible that the county would reach a 70 percent turnout, but that did not happen.
“Elections are decided by those who show up,” Newby said, quoting another election official.