Early voting is up in Kansas this year compared to the last midterm election. As of Tuesday morning, two weeks before the election, the secretary of state’s office says more than 30,000 Kansans had voted in person or by mail.
As of the same time during the 2014 election, around 10,000 fewer Kansans had cast ballots.
University of Kansas political scientist Patrick Miller says voter turnout could be high this year. It was high in the primary.
However, the early voting bump doesn’t guarantee a bump in voting, or mean one party is doing better than the other, Miller said. Part of the boost is from early voting simply becoming more common.
“Those people who would turn out on Election Day anyway, they’re mostly now voting before election day," Miller said. "That’s really messing up looking at early voting trends.”
Some Kansas counties have broken voter registration records, suggesting more people could be preparing to vote.
Stephen Koranda has more: