Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab said he thinks the Nov. 5 general election is heading toward historic voter turnout.
Schwab in a Friday news release reported that 516,776 ballots have been cast so far, with early in-person voting ending at noon Monday. That’s less than the 642,724 ballots cast in the 2020 election by the Friday before Election Day, but significantly higher from the 375,857 cast in 2016.
The 2020 election is an outlier with the COVID-19 pandemic causing unprecedented demand for alternatives to in-person voting.
“Take that year with a grain of salt,” Schwab said.
In 2020, about 71% of registered voters participated in the Kansas elections and 67% voted in 2016. Schwab said with the early ballots in, Kansas could be heading for record turnout this year.
“We are on track to set a record, so I encourage every voter to get out and exercise their constitutional right,” Schwab said.
Turnout is typically higher in presidential election years like 2024, with the last off-year election in 2022 only getting about 51% participation rate and a 58% turnout in 2018. Both those years included a gubernatorial election and races for each Kansas U.S. House of Representatives, while 2022 included a Senate race and a referendum on abortion rights in the state.