By DALE HOGG
Barton County Media Consultant
Good news met Barton County commissioners Monday morning as they met as the Board of Canvassers to canvass the ballots from the Nov. 4 general election.
Gathered in the County Clerk’s Office, they were told by County Clerk Bev Schmeidler the Nov. 6 audit of the Nov. 4 general election was once again clean. Since these random balloting checks were first implemented in 2019, “we’ve never had anything but a clean audit,” she said.
The Audit Board, a volunteer panel of four Barton County residents, looked over the results from two randomly selected precinct races – this election’s random selections were the Barton Community College Trustees (with seven candidates) and Great Bend City Council Ward 2 (with two candidates) races.
“They had to hand-count all the ballots to make sure the numbers were the same as the machines,” Schmeidler said.
Schmeidler said of the 17,048 registered voters in Barton County, 18.6 percent cast a ballot. “This is about normal”.
“Last year, with a presidential election, we had over 60% of our voters turnout. It would be incredible if we could meet or exceed that number in all elections.”
Canvassing the ballots
Commissioners Duane Reif, Tricia Schlessiger, Donna Zimmerman and Shawn Hutchinson, along with County Administrator Matt Patzner, reviewed 34 provisional ballots.
Voter Registration Clerk Darin DeWitt explained a provisional ballot allows a vote to be cast when a voter's eligibility is in question at the polling place. The ballot is considered valid only after the voter's registration issue is corrected or the required photo ID is provided before the official election canvas.
Reasons for provisional ballots varied, with the most common being a move within the county. Other reasons included rare instances of a voter lacking photo identification and minor administrative issues. Ultimately, 30 ballots were accepted, while four were rejected: one voter failed to present a photo ID and three were not registered in the county.
Schmeidler noted the canvass was held on Monday, the last possible day under state statute, because the commission did not meet on the Tuesday following the election due to Veterans Day.
The purpose of the canvass is to certify the election results. Until this was done, the election results had been unofficial.
The count Monday morning didn’t impact the outcome of any of the races from the November general election. The ballot included mayor and city council elections, BCC Trustees, the Ellinwood District Hospital Board, the Cottonwood Extension District, boards of education and a sales tax question for the City of Claflin.