A “vote here” banner waves in front of the Cowley County Clerk’s Office building on 321 E. 10th Ave in Winfield Thursday afternoon. County Clerk Karen Madison said numbers for advanced voting were higher than expected. (Photo by Brady Bauman)
WINFIELD — Like the rest of the country, voter participation for Tuesday’s elections is already much higher than the midterm norm.
Cowley County Clerk Karen Madison, who is also the county’s top election official, told KSOK-NewsCow Thursday afternoon she wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a turnout of 60 percent after votes are counted next week.
In 2016, turnout was near 65 percent for the presidential election and in the 2014 midterm 51 percent of registered voters participated.
“Our turnout in the office for advanced voting is comparable to two years ago, in the presidential,” she said.
Madison said almost 2,000 people stepped inside the clerk’s office for advanced voting so far. Advanced voting ends Monday at noon. She said approximately 1,500 advance ballots have been sent in the mail and nearly 1,000 of those have been returned.
“It’s hard to tell if more people are just advanced voting or if we’re going to have bigger turnout,” she said. “That’s what I can’t get a feel for, because advanced voting has increased every time. More people realize they can, so they just do. They’d rather just come in here and get it done and not have to wait in lines or anything — we haven’t had lines so far, it’s gone really fast. I think the longest anyone has waited has been 10 minutes.”
In the last midterm election, Madison said 1,379 people took advantage of in-office advanced voting.
“We’ve shattered that,” she said. “And we still have a day and a half to go… and the girls out there know it, because they’re tired.”
Madison said the numbers are higher than her office expected when the start of advanced voting approached.
“You usually don’t compare a midterm to a presidential,” she said. “I’m not preparing for (the 2014 midterm). I’m preparing for the presidential.”
With the only federal race for the Cowley County area being a Congressional fight between Republican incumbent Ron Estes and Democratic challenger James Thompson for Kansas’ 4th District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, Madison pointed to the contest for governor as the driver for advanced voting traffic.
“Obviously, we don’t have a governor (on the ticket) that’s an incumbent, so anytime you don’t have an incumbent you have more participation,” she said. “That’s what I feel. That’s what gets people out. If you have races, if you have issues that are important to people, that’s what’s going to get them out — it gets more passion.”
For those wanting to wait till the actual election day to vote, polls open on Tuesday at 7 a.m. and will close at 7 p.m.
“We’ll have a busy day still, I’m sure,” Madison said.
