Voters flocked to the polls in significant numbers Tuesday in the Kansas City area, particularly on the Kansas side of the state line. Statewide, Kansas’ turnout was far greater than Missouri’s: around 47% of Kansas voters cast a ballot, while only around 24% of Missouri voters did.

Of the counties that make up the Kansas City metro area, Johnson County saw by far the highest turnout at 53.7%. While not as high as the state’s average of about 47%, Wyandotte County came in second place with nearly 35% turnout—higher than any of the Missouri counties in the metro.

Kansas’ turnout was particularly high because of the abortion amendment that was on the ballot. Voters rejected the amendment in a landslide, preserving the right to abortion in the Kansas state constitution.

How they voted

This gradient map shows how strongly counties went for either "no" or "yes on the abortion vote. Many counties throughout the state had closer margins than expected. These results are unofficial until certified by the Kansas Secretary of State's Office and could change as provisional and late-arriving mail ballots are processed.
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The Kansas City Star

Across the state, Kansans nearly doubled the number of votes cast in the 2018 midterm primary election, and surpassed the number of votes cast in the 2020 presidential primary by more than 250,000 votes.

You can see all of Kansas’ election results here.

Tuesday’s lowest local turnout was found in Kansas City: The city’s election board reported Wednesday that less than 20% of voters cast a ballot. The highest turnout in the metro on the Missouri side was found in surrounding Jackson County at around 28%.

Missouri voters chose party nominees for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat to replace sitting Republican Sen. Roy Blunt. Current Attorney General Eric Schmidtt won the crowded Republican Senate primary, and Anheuser Busch heiress Trudy Busch Valentine won the Democratic Senate primary. The two will face off in November.

You can see all of Missouri’s results here.

Here’s a breakdown of all the voter turnout rates as reported Wednesday morning by local election offices:

Kansas turnout

• Statewide: 46.58%

• Johnson County: 53.65%

• Wyandotte County: 34.98%

Missouri turnout

• Statewide: 24.29%

• Kansas City: 19.77%

• Jackson County: 28.15%

• Platte County: 23.16%

• Clay County: 23.33%

• Cass County: 26.28%

Jodonn Chaney, a spokesperson for the Missouri Secretary of State’s office, expressed disappointment in the state’s overall turnout, saying it was lower than in the primary four years ago.

“We were up at about 30% in 2018,” Chaney told The Star. “I don’t know, necessarily, any reason for [the decrease]. I don’t know if it’s because of no major ballot initiative on the statewide ballot… I thought that the sheer number of candidates would be a big draw, but that didn’t prove effective either.”

In Kansas City, election officers saw low turnout coupled with a tense atmosphere at some city polling places.

“In 2018, the turnout was around 26%,” said Lauri Ealom, a Democrat and one of the city’s two partisan election commissioners. “One of the things that I saw yesterday was a lot more disgruntled voters… What I think has happened is there’s a lot of voter fatigue.”

Ealom visited 12 polling places Tuesday, and said she was asked about issues like abortion rights and marijuana legalization, neither of which were on Missouri ballots. She added that the spread of misinformation and constant messaging around elections may have contributed to the city’s low turnout Tuesday.

“I think voter education is key,” she said. “How we’re going to pull that off, I don’t really know.”

Do you have more questions about the primary elections in Kansas or Missouri? Ask the Service Journalism team at kcq@kcstar.com.