Large voter turnout expected for primary

Harvey County election officials are expecting a larger-than- normal turnout for this year’s primary election.

“We’re preparing for about a 60 percent turnout of voters,” said Bette Rhine, Harvey County deputy clerk. “Turnout is usually a lot less than that, but because of some of the local contested races, we think there’s going to be a larger turnout.”

Harvey County has 20,367 registered voters — 9,958 registered Republicans, 4,895 registered Democrats and 5,514 unaffiliated and other parties.

Advanced voting has been steady, Rhine said. As of Friday afternoon, 809 voters had voted, which is above average. Advanced voting closed at noon today.

For those going to the polls to place their votes from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Tuesday, a few voters will have new polling places.

Newton Township residents will cast their votes at Nazarene Church on West First Street in Newton. Halstead and Lakin Township residents will go to the new Halstead High School gymnasium. Hesston and Emma township residents will cast votes at Kingdom of Life Church at Ridge and Hickory in Hesston.

Contested races that may be bring the voters out for the primary election include:

• U.S. Senate — Lee Jones, D-Overland Park, and Jim Slattery, D-Topeka, with the winner going against incumbent Pat Roberts, R-Dodge City in the November general election

• Kansas Senate District 31 — Rex Farley, R-Sedgwick, incumbent Carolyn McGinn, R-Sedgwick, with the winner going against Gene E. Marsh, D-Halstead, in general election

• Kansas House of Representatives 74th District — Mitch Powell, R-Halstead, incumbent Don Schroeder, R-Inman

• Harvey County attorney — incumbent David E. Yoder, R-Newton; Michael J. Hoelscher, R-Newton

• Harvey County sheriff — Bruce Joliff, R-Newton, incumbent A.J. Wuthnow, R-Moundridge, with the winner going against T. Walton, D-Newton, in the general election in November.

While Harvey County may see a larger-than-normal voter turnout, Secretary of State Ron Thornburgh predicted lower-than-average voter turnout for the upcoming primary election.

“Unfortunately, a number of factors that would signal a large voter turnout are absent in the upcoming election. The high number of uncontested races, lack of local ballot issues and a generally slow campaign cycle are leading me to predict a below-average showing on Tuesday,” Thornburgh said.

The Secretary of State’s office projected about 319,000 voters will cast a ballot in Tuesday’s primary election.

This year, 1,642,477 voters are eligible to participate in the primary election because only registered Democrats, Republicans and unaffiliated are eligible to vote in the primary. Anyone who is registered as an unaffiliated voter can, on election day, choose to vote in the Democrat primary. Unaffiliated voters wanting to vote in the Republican primary will be required to affiliate with the political party by completing an affiliation form available at the polls on election day.

The number of voters affiliated with each recognized political party includes: Democratic — 449,058; Libertarian — 9,152; Reform — 1,344; Republican — 741,786; Unaffiliated — 451,633; for a total of 1,652,973.

Johnson, Sedgwick, Shawnee and Wyandotte counties make up 46.7 percent of the total registered voters.

The Top 10 counties include Johnson, Sedgwick, Shawnee, Wyandotte, Douglas, Reno, Leavenworth, Saline, Butler and Riley. They make up 62.2 percent of total registered voters.

Election results will be posted on the Secretary of State’s Web site at www.kssos.org starting at 7 p.m. Tuesday.

The election results will be offered on an interactive mapping system, and users can access results by clicking on each county.