By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
The Nov. 5 General Election is now less than a month away. Early voting may begin around the state as early as Oct. 16. There are many ways to vote in the election, including mail-in ballots. Barton County Clerk and Election Officer Bev Schmeidler said ballots may also be returned to the drop boxes in the alley near the Hoisington Police Department or next to Central Kansas Community Corrections in Great Bend.
"Both of them are where you can drive right up to them, deposit your ballot, and go on," she said. "They are very secure. They are locked at all times. Our people come and get the ballots out of there and collect them on a regular basis, and they are under 24/7 surveillance. It's very safe to deposit them there."
Early voting will take place in the clerk's office on the second floor of the Barton County Courthouse from Oct. 16 through noon on Monday, Nov. 4. The office will even be open on Saturday, Nov. 2 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. for early voting. Voters have the option of using a machine or paper to vote, all with the same result.
"Our electronic voting machines, the ExpressVotes, still print out a paper you can still physically look at and see your choices on before you put it in the tabulator," Schmeidler said. "Whether you vote on the machine or you do a printed paper ballot, they're both a paper and they both go in the same tabulator machine and get counted."
To further election security, two days after the election, an independent board will be hired to audit the election results. The secretary of state's office typically determines which races will be audited, and the clerk's office does a random draw on which precincts will be audited. The independent board will hand count every ballot from those precincts. Barton County's counts have been spot-on since the process began in 2019.