Shawnee County finishes ballot counting

Every legal ballot in Shawnee County has been tallied.

On Monday morning, the Shawnee County commissioners approved the counting of 1,621 envelopes that contained the last wave of ballots in the 2020 general election.

The commissioners met as the Board of County Canvassers at the Shawnee County Election Office, 3420 S.W. Van Buren, to approved or disapprove the counting of provisional ballots.

Voters with provisional ballots had until 8:59 a.m. Monday morning to rectify issues with their ballots for them to count. Election commissioner Andrew Howell said one voter fixed the issues with their ballot about 8:40 a.m.

Howell said provisional ballots are put into envelopes so the election office won’t see whom the voter selected. He said each envelope should have one ballot inside, but it is possible there are no ballots or multiple ballots inside.

An envelope could be empty if a voter didn’t vote in person despite showing up to a polling place. Howell said he saw voters “halfway” through the voting process get their mail-in ballot from the car, electing not to vote in person.

“Even if there is a partially filled out envelope, I want to know about it,” Howell said. “I don’t want them to throw anything away.”

Of those 1,621 envelopes approved for counting, 800 were provisional envelopes because voters requested a mail-in ballot then voted in person, according to Howell. He said the election office has confirmed they only voted once and began counting those ballots Monday morning.

“Almost all of these are people who, in my opinion, got bad information at some level and for some reason didn’t trust the mail-in ballot enough,” Howell said.

There were also 485 provisional envelopes with registrations adjustments, like a name or address change, that the election office had to verify and 26 provisional envelopes where the voter provided their ID after they voted. One ballot was counted after an election worker’s error included multiple ballots in the same envelope.

“They got it close. We at least have enough information to know what to do with it,” Howell said. “They made a mistake at the polling place ... But I think it was handled correctly at the end of the day.”

Howell also recommended 304 envelopes be partially counted. He said these 304 voters went to the wrong polling place and voted in races in the wrong precinct but still voted in some races they were eligible for, such as the presidential race.

Howell recommended 516 ballots not be counted. He said 460 of those ballots were ineligible for registration issues, such as the voter missing the registration deadline, 27 mail-in ballots had no signature and two ballots had a different person’s signature.

There were 11 duplicate ballots because the voter cast both a mail-in and in-person vote. He said he doesn’t think these voters maliciously cast ballots, and said the voter might have forgotten if they mailed in a ballot and wanted to ensure they voted in 2020.

There were also 16 provisional ballots that shouldn’t count because the voter never provided their ID after casting a provisional ballot, Howell said.

The final group of provisional ballots didn’t change the outcome of any races, according to Howell.