Topeka ? Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach is projecting that 50 percent of all registered voters, or 872,000 people in Kansas, will cast ballots in Tuesday’s election.

Kobach made that projection during a news conference Thursday. He said that is based in part on the current pace of advance voting and the fact that there are highly competitive races for governor and U.S. Senate.

As of Thursday, there were 1.74 million voters registered in Kansas, a record high for a non-presidential election. That number could go higher as people whose registrations are being held in suspense complete the process by submitting the required documents to prove they are U.S. citizens.

Those voters have until Monday to submit those documents to their county election officers. Copies of those documents may be submitted by mail, fax or email.

As of Oct. 17, two days after the deadline to submit a voter registration application, there were 23,774 would-be voters who had not yet submitted proof of citizenship. Kobach said that is now down to about 22,000 registrations, and he expected it to drop to about 21,000 by Tuesday.

As of Thursday morning, Kobach said, 152,746 voters had cast advance ballots, either in person or by mail. Of those, about 54 percent were from registered Republicans; 31 percent from registered Democrats; and 15 percent from unaffiliated voters.