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00000179-cdc6-d978-adfd-cfc6d7d40002Coverage of the issues, races and people shaping Kansas elections in 2016, including statewide coverage in partnership with KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, and High Plains Public Radio.

Early Voting Up In Sedgwick County, Kansas

Hugo Phan
/
KMUW/File photo

More people voted early this election cycle than for the last presidential election in 2012.

Secretary of State Kris Kobach's office says the number of early ballots cast in Kansas is 47 percent higher than it was four years ago.

Kobach's office said, as of early Tuesday morning, more than 505,000 Kansas voters had cast ballots by mail or in person at sites set up by county election officials.

The figure was about 344,000 for the morning of the 2012 election.

In Sedgwick County, Election Commissioner Tabitha Lehman says in-person advance voting set records on a few days.

"The first day we had all of our satellite sites open we set a new record, and then Friday of early voting, when all the sites were open, we set another record," Lehman says. "But then Monday morning of advance voting, at our office, we had more than 1300 people come through in four-and-a-half hours, so that was a new record for our office."

The secretary of state says voters have mailed in early ballots at a slightly higher rate than they did in 2012.

Early in-person voting had increased nearly 87 percent before it ended at noon Monday.

About 332,000 people cast early ballots in-person this year. The figure for 2012 was 178,000.

A record 1.3 million voters were expected to participate in this year's election.

Deborah joined the news team at KMUW in September 2014 as a news reporter. She spent more than a dozen years working in news at both public and commercial radio and television stations in Ohio, West Virginia and Detroit, Michigan. Before relocating to Wichita in 2013, Deborah taught news and broadcasting classes at Tarrant County College in the Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas area.