OLATHE, Kan. — Johnson and Wyandotte County election leaders are ready for a surge in mail-in ballots and are putting extra safety precautions in place as voters head to the polls in the middle of a pandemic.
"We are down a few supervising judges...but not enough that we really are concerned, we have plenty of poll workers," Johnson County Election Commissioner Connie Schmidt said.
Bruce Newby, Wyandotte County's election commissioner, also emphasized extra precautions - such as plexiglass separators between voters and volunteers, as well as six-foot distancing floor markers and hand sanitizer.
He told 41 Action News that the average poll worker age is 72, so voters are strongly encouraged to wear masks to protect themselves and others.
As for the mail-in numbers, they are on a record-breaking pace in both Kansas counties.
"We have about 70,000 advance by mail that have been returned. We’ve issued over 106,000 so that’s a pretty good return rate and more coming in every day. We’re guessing we’ll get up to 80,000 back. We voted about 15,000 in person. That’s a large number of our voters who have checked in and cast their ballot," Schmidt said.
Wyandotte County is reporting more than 11,000 mail-in ballots sent to voters, with more than 8,000 returned.
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