ELLY GRIMM

   • Leader & Times

The midterm elections are coming up very quickly, and the staff of the Seward County Clerk’s office are gearing up for the expected influx of voters.

As County Clerk Stacia Long tells it, prep work has been going on for several weeks already.

“We've been working on it for probably more than a month now, because we're required to have ballots mailed out for all overseas voters, and so that has been done. It has to be done 45 days before the election, we have to send the ballots out, and so with that, we have to pretty much have our ballot prepared by then,” Long said. “There's also getting the poll workers lined up to make sure we have enough workers to work on Election Day, and also for early voting. I do hire temporary people to come in and work early voting, and that seems to be very popular with voters. We will start early voting Monday, Oct. 19, and that will take place in the Seward County Administration Building Monday through Friday during regular operating hours. And also because I feel like we're going to have pretty good turnout, we are also going to have Saturday voting from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. Oct. 24 and Oct. 31, so for people who maybe work out of town during the week, they can come in on either of those Saturdays to cast their ballot. Early voting ends at noon the day before the election, and that's by statute so we can get everything set up at the polling places and be ready to go for Tuesday morning, bright and early. Right now, really, it's kind of the calm before the storm for me because a lot of the work to get prepared has already been done.”

And that is not all, Long said. 

“We did our public test of the equipment, a public test of the equipment and so from that point on, the ball gets to rolling,” Long said. “We began mailing advance ballot by mail to those people who requested them, and we process those as we get them in the office.  We have a good system here, and I am very thankful for the poll workers we have and the temporary help because they've all worked elections, they're experienced, and that really helps. I also have a few new workers this time, so there will be some training done on that, but I feel like that will all go just fine. We have bilingual workers, and we also use high school students as well, and they get community service hours for helping us, and I appreciate how USD 480 is willing to let those kids work the elections and get the experience.”

Long said she hopes to see high voter turnout for this year’s election.

“We always hope to see a high turnout for sure, but it's always hard to predict what will happen, but I did look back at the 2022 election, and I believe we had 25 percent voter turnout then, so it was a pretty busy election,” Long said. “And typically, the federal and state elections are busier than the city school elections, so hopefully we'll have a good turnout. And since we’re providing the Saturday voting, that should give more people an opportunity to come in come in and vote. I’ve said this before, but I feel like there's no excuse not to vote if you're registered to vote because there are so many different ways you can do it.. You can do it by advance by mail, as long as you fill out the application and everything checks out. They can also early vote, or vote at the polling place on Election Day. With those who do the advance voting by mail, however, the Kansas Legislature passed a law earlier this year that they were no longer going to honor the three-day grace period, and there's actually a lawsuit filed to get that reversed. The main thing people need to do if they're mailing their ballot back is get it back as soon as possible – don't sit on it, don't wait, because we don't have control over the postal service or how quickly we get the ballots back. The ballot has to be postmarked on or before election day and received by the Friday after in order for it to count. I put an insert in the advance by mail ballots because there are a lot of instructions those people need to pay very close attention to if they want their ballot to count. Every ballot we receive back must be signed by the voter, and there's also a place if the voter assigns somebody else to deliver their ballot, there's a place they have to sign. There are a lot of things those folks have to pay attention to in order to make sure their ballot counts.”

The variety of offices up for election should also hopefully help with voter turnout, Long said.

“During a gubernatorial election, we absolutely see people come and vote in those elections who don't typically get out and vote. For whatever reason, the federal and state elections bring out a lot more people to vote, so I do expect the turnout to be higher,” Long said. “And it seems like there are a lot of close races at the state level, and a lot of times we'll see more enthusiasm from voters. I also recommend people look at their sample ballot before they go to the polls because there are a lot of races on the ballot, and having that sample ballot gives them the opportunity to research the candidates, and they can even take their sample ballot with them to the polls. It's easier now more than ever to get the information you want beforehand. We have the VoterView Web site link through our Web site, and I mention it to everyone I possibly can because it's a wonderful tool to use.”

Long added local citizens are more than welcome to call her office if they have questions and said she hopes to see everyone at the polls in the coming weeks.

“Nationwide, we always encourage people to exercise their right to vote, it's very important to do so,” Long said. “Like I’ve said before, there are also so many different ways for people to vote now – people can vote early, they can vote by mail or by absentee ballot, or they can vote on Election Day, so in my mind, there's not really any excuse for people to not vote, because there's literally every opportunity to do so. The main thing is for citizens to be knowledgeable about what's going on, and if there's something they don't quite understand, reach out to us and get to the information you need, we'll be happy to help.”