Voter turnout in Johnson County was over 53% as Kansans reject abortion amendment

Kansas’ primary election saw monumental turnout in Johnson and Wyandotte counties as voters flocked to the polls to choose nominees for the November general election and to overwhelmingly reject the amendment on the ballot, preserving Kansans’ right to abortion in the state constitution.

Statewide, turnout was around 47%. A total of 908,745 people voted on the abortion amendment, out of 1,950,971 registered Kansas voters. As many as 18.6% of these voters may have been unaffiliated with either major political party.

Turnout was especially impressive in Johnson County at 53.7%: a tally nearly unheard of in a primary election. Nearly a quarter of a million votes were cast—244,818 to be precise. Around half of these votes were cast in person on Election Day, while nearly 100,000 were cast early in person. The rest were absentee ballots, some of which will continue to arrive at the election office in the coming days.

The number of votes cast in Johnson County this election was more than double those cast in the 2018 primary, about 100,000 more than for the 2020 presidential primary election and about 90,000 votes shy of the county’s total votes in the 2020 general election, when turnout was 74%.

Wyandotte County ended the night with a turnout rate just shy of 35%. A total of 31,521 people voted, with around two thirds of ballots cast on Election Day. The rest were split between early votes and absentee ballots.

“We had close to 22,000 [people] vote today, which is pretty good considering in 2018 we only had about 20,458 ballots cast total,” Wyandotte County election commissioner Michael Abbott told The Star. “That’s pretty big for us.” The county’s final tally of in-person Election Day votes was 21,935.

Secretary of State Scott Schwab said early in the evening that anecdotal evidence indicated statewide turnout could match the 2008 presidential race, which had a turnout of 63.3%. He had previously predicted turnout would be around 36%.

“He’s expecting voter turnout to be well above what he predicted,” Kansas Secretary of State spokesperson Whitney Tempel told The Star Tuesday evening at 8:30 p.m.

The Associated Press called the abortion amendment race at 9:40 p.m central. The vote “no” campaign led with 61% to 39% with 2540 of 3994 precincts reporting.

Missouri had a statewide turnout of about 24%, according to state election officials. At least 1,026,074 people cast ballots out of the 4,224,952 voters registered in the state.