Kansas is expecting to see its highest voter turnout for a primary in 24 years when voters go to the polls to cast ballots in next week’s primary election.
The secretary of state’s office on Friday projected that voter turnout would reach 28%, the highest for a primary since 1996 when Sheila Frahm and Sam Brownback waged a fierce campaign for the GOP nomination for U.S. Senate.
Voter turnout peaked at 39% in 1996 and hasn’t approached that rate since, according to the secretary of state’s office.
The highest voter turnout since then was in 2018, when 27.1% of voters cast a ballot. Turnout was 23.5% for the 2016 primary, 20.2% in 2014 and 23.2% in 2012.
The prediction for this year is based on several factors including historical turnout data, advance voting figures, registered voters in Kansas and competitive races driving turnout.
This year, there are hotly contested Republican primaries for U.S. Senate and in the 1st 2nd, and 3rd Congressional Districts.
There are also 13 primaries — 11 Republican and two Democratic — for the state Senate.
There are 41 primaries — 29 Republican and 12 Democratic — in the House.
The state has seen a historic surge in requests for advance ballots this year with the threat of the coronavirus pandemic hanging over the state.
As of Friday, there have been 314,788 advance mail ballots sent to Kansas voters.
For comparison, there were 51,211 ballots were sent to Kansas voters during the same period in the 2018 primary and 53,387 in 2016.
To date, 159,012 advance mail ballots have been returned to local election offices, compared to 26,917 in the 2018 primary election and 26,795 in 2016.
Party affiliation of the returned advance mail ballots are 81,208 for Democrats and 77,372 for Republicans, nine for libertarians and 423 for unaffiliated voters.
