By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
As predicted, voters are heading to the polls for the 2022 primaries. Given many contested races around the area and the state, and with the constitutional amendment regarding abortion being decided in the primary, election officials are seeing increased participation over previous elections.
"I just checked, and we've had 538 vote here in the office so far," Barton County Clerk Bev Schmeidler said Wednesday morning. "We did over 100 (Tuesday), just the one day. The Secretary of State said statewide, the numbers are up over the 2018 gubernatorial election year. It has seemed busier. We've mailed a lot more ballots."
Across the state, the Secretary of State's office reported that 65,526 advance ballots had been cast in person as of 8 a.m. Monday morning. That is more than three times the number of votes cast by this time in the 2018 election cycle. More than 111,000 advance ballots had been mailed as of Monday morning, compared to just over 47,000 ballots in 2018. The 29,210 returned ballots are nearly double the 2018 total at this time.
Early voting in Barton County continues at the clerk's office from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday and Friday. The office will have special hours from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. this Saturday, July 30. Early voting ends at noon on Monday, Aug. 1.