1.5 million Kansas, Missouri voters have already cast their 2020 ballots

More than 1.5 million Kansas and Missouri voters have already cast ballots on the eve of Tuesday’s momentous presidential election between President Donald Trump and former vice president Joe Biden.

They join a record number of Americans who have turned to mail-in voting to avoid the polls as a third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic bears down on the U.S. In total, 60.5 million voters have sent in mail ballots this fall, according to data compiled by the United States Elections Project.

By Saturday, 393,486 Kansans had voted by mail and another 318,178 had cast ballots in-person. The combined 711,664 voters account for roughly 59% of Kansas’ 2016 electorate, or one in three registered voters.

In Missouri, where mail voting is considerably more complicated, 827,978 people had voted as of Sunday, according to the most recent data from the secretary of state. That means vote totals are at roughly 30% of the 2.8 million ballots cast in 2016.

Voters in Texas and Hawaii have already cast more ballots than in 2016, and 13 other states have reached at least 80% of their 2016 vote share, according to the Elections Project.

Large-scale absentee voting has been around since the Civil War, but in 1978, California became the first state to allow voters to request an absentee ballot without providing a specific excuse.

Missouri is one of the few states to distinguish between absentee and mail-in voting. The legislature approved special provisions allowing any registered voter to vote by mail this year, but all mail-in ballots and some absentee ballots must be notarized. Kansas voters have been able to vote absentee for any reason since 1996.

This year, 508,109 Kansans have requested and been sent absentee ballots, outpacing 2016 by more than 300,000 voters. According to secretary of state data, 46% of voters who requested ballots are Democrats. Thirty-seven percent are Republicans and 16% are unaffiliated.

As of Saturday, 77% of absentee ballots in the state had been returned to local election authorities. In Kansas, absentee ballots received in the mail up to three days after Election Day will be counted as long as they are postmarked on or before Nov. 3.

All Missouri mail-in ballots must be returned through the U.S. Postal Service, but Kansas voters can skip the mail and return ballots through their county’s secure ballot drop boxes. Drop boxes have one-way openings, tamper-proof locks and video monitoring.

In Johnson County, Kansas’ most populous county, more than 200,000 advance ballots have flooded into the election office. Johnson County Election Commissioner Connie Schmidt said 76% of those ballots have been returned through drop boxes.

“That’s very good news for us, because that means we’re going to have a larger quantity of votes reported out on election night,” Schmidt said.

In Missouri, mail and absentee ballots that arrive after the polls close at 7 p.m. on Tuesday will be rejected.

Missouri voters have requested 816,756 absentee ballots and 60,173 mail-in ballots. The 827,978 ballots listed as received by local election authorities include those cast during in-person absentee voting.

“Here in Jackson County, we have processed more absentee ballot applications this election than we did all three of the previous presidential elections combined,” said Corey Dillon, Jackson County’s Democratic election director.

Jackson County, Missouri’s second most populous county, has processed 57,316 absentee and mail-in ballot requests this year. That’s compared to 46,710 requests in 2016, 2012 and 2008 combined.

For Missouri voters who received a ballot in the mail and haven’t sent it back yet, it’s likely too late to return it through the postal system.

Maura Browning, a spokesperson for the Missouri Secretary of State’s office, said local election offices can be accommodating to voters who have made the mistake of holding onto their ballot for too long.

“Let’s say I request an absentee ballot and it comes to me in the mail and then I forget to send it in,” Browning said. “I can take that to the polling place on Election Day and ask them to spoil (destroy) that ballot and then they’ll provide me another ballot that I can complete.”

Absentee voters can also surrender their ballot at a satellite voting location and vote in-person.

This year, Missourians who are at risk of contracting COVID-19, including anyone 65 or older, can vote absentee in-person without requesting a ballot or getting it notarized.

Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft has consistently promoted in-person voting as the best option for Missourians. He says that for every 50 mail-in and absentee ballots cast, local election authorities will reject at least one — a rate nearly double the national average.

That’s why Ashcroft, who is on the ballot this fall, says he opposes making expanded mail-in voting provisions permanent.

But Kansas Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Katie Koupal said the seismic shift towards mail-in voting this year might reshape American elections for years to come.

“It will be interesting to watch two years from now, but the real indicator will be in 2024 when it’s another presidential election,” Koupal said.

This story has been updated.

This story was originally published November 2, 2020 at 5:00 AM.