MISSION — Kansas voters turned out early and in large numbers for Tuesday's election, even with President Bush expected to win the state easily.
In Wyandotte County, Democratic poll watchers reported shortages of materials for voters casting provisional ballots at three precincts, said Mark Simpson, the party's state executive director. Such ballots are cast when election workers aren't sure someone is eligible to vote at a particular polling place.
Pat Rahija, the Wyandotte County election commissioner, said the issue was whether precincts had enough envelopes to seal provisional ballots.
She said she had workers dispatch extra envelopes to the precincts. Rahija said Wyandotte County was seeing an unusually high number of provisional ballots, though she did not have any figures.
"We're having more provisional ballots than we've ever seen in our lives," she said, noting that she distributed about 4,000 envelopes around the area and had 2,000 more available.
Ellis County Clerk Alberta Klaus predicted at least 75 percent of that county's 17,895 registered voters would cast ballots.
Despite predictions of cold, wet weather in western Kansas, Klaus said Tuesday was a beautiful day, which she thought also would boost turnout.
In Dodge City, voters were lined up an hour before polls opened at 7 a.m. because of a mistake by Wichita television stations that gave the wrong opening time, Ford County Clerk Vicki Wells said.
She said some of those who showed up early decided to wait until the polls opened, while others left and said they would be back.
Many voters in Thomas County, one of several in northwest Kansas in the Mountain Time Zone, also lined up early at the polls in Colby because of radio broadcasts that gave the wrong opening time, County Clerk Tracey Perkins said. But she said that didn't cause any major problems for her office.
Perkins estimated that about 83 percent of the county's 5,727 voters would turn out.
Overview
Unofficial election results
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