Election judge June Givens could tell Election Day was going to get off to a fast start this morning.
“They came down about five minutes early and I couldn’t let them in until seven o’clock,” said Givens, who had six or seven people waiting in line to vote at Precinct 30 in Neosho Rapids. “They said ‘We’re going to be late to work.’ I said ‘I’m sorry.’”
Poll workers in many other precincts found themselves with quite a few voters on their hands as well, which likely came as no surprise to County Clerk Karen Hartenbower. On late Monday afternoon, Hartenbower continued to predict that about 10,000 people would cast votes in the county, about half of the county’s registered voters.
Advance ballots had already put the county well on its way to that total by noon Monday, when early voting closed.
“We’re over 2,000 people who have voted in advance, with what we mailed out and what voted in-house,” said Hartenbower. “The highest we’ve ever had was a little over 2,200 in the 2004 presidential election, so this is the next-highest of all elections. It’s high for this odd-year election.”
That was obvious at the Girl Scout center, home to precincts 10 and 25. About 15 cars were parked on each side of the street, according to one voter, and about 20 people were waiting in line just six minutes after the polls opened. All but three were waiting for precinct 25, located outside of Emporia.
Poll workers there said that 47 voters have voted by 8 a.m., well above the average turnout for an election. Workers said they were very pleased with the turnout.
Voting also was brisk at Westminster Presbyterian Church, where the 16th and 18th precincts shared a polling place.
Sharon Miller, a worker assigned to the 16th district, said that turnout had been “great” with 30 voters signed in — one for every minute the polls had been open.
Nineteen voters had registered at a table across the room, where the 18th district was casting ballots. The early turnout seemed to be higher than in previous years, according to worker Jesse Solis.
“I don’t think we had that before,” Solis said.
While voters may have been charged up, some of the voting machines weren’t. Election workers at the Lee Beran Recreation Center found two voting machines showing low-battery messages when they arrived this morning before 7 a.m.
They called for Joe Torres, who takes care of the machines for the clerk’s office, and the problem was resolved shortly after 7:30 a.m., when nine people had voted.
“I guess there was somebody in here last night and moved them around,” said Shirley Kusmaul, supervising judge. “We had enough battery to get us through until he came.”
The problem was caused when recreation center officials allowed a dance to be held in the room reserved for today’s election, Hartenbower said. People at the dance apparently unplugged and moved the voting machines and did not plug them in again when the machines were moved back to their previous spots.
Hartenbower said that the incident was not the first time that the Recreation Center room has been double-booked, and that she will talk with the recreation commission to ensure that the election room remains empty from set-up until voting.
“They should not have rented it last night,” she said.
The machine movement last night should not affect vote count.
“Joe said that all of the memory cards, all of the tapes were fine,” Hartenbower said. “We feel very confident that everything was secure.”
Two local ballot questions and the candidacy of Emporian Jim Barnett for governor may have drummed up some of the additional interest this year. The ballot questions ask voters whether the county should have five commissioners and whether a county administrator should be hired.
Eighty-six voters had turned out by 8:15 a.m. at Precinct 31 at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Olpe and judges said people were still lining up. Another 60 had shown up by that time at Precinct 24 in Americus.
In precincts 1 and 2, based out of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church, workers were too busy to stay long on the phone. By about 8:21 a.m., 67 people had voted in the two precincts.
Hartenbower will have a full staff and a few part-time election workers on hand when the polls close and the counting begins.
More than 130 people are on-site at 28 polling sites to assist with voters from 32 precincts; several of the polling places have more than one precinct voting at those sites.
Hartenbower predicted that her staff would be finished counting ballots between 10 and 11 p.m. In earlier elections, tabulators brought in approximately 30 computer cards for tallying votes.
“Now they’re bringing in 120-plug cards, and it takes a lot longer for them to run through,” she said.