County clerk’s office already reporting strong voter turnout for school district’s mail-in bond election

This sample ballot shows the bond issue that will be mailed to Lawrence USD 497 residents as early as April 12, 2017.

Douglas County Clerk Jamie Shew expects a healthy voter turnout in the Lawrence school district’s mail-in bond election, he told the Journal-World this week.

On Wednesday, a little less than a week before the deadline to return ballots, Shew’s office had already received approximately 12,000 ballots in response to the district’s proposed $87 million bond issue for improvements to secondary schools.

Shew said he expects turnout to reach numbers similar to those reported in the county’s first-ever mail-in election. That election, in January 2015, saw more than 17,000 ballots returned.

That’s a turnout of nearly 33 percent, “which is a much bigger turnout than I might’ve had if I’d had a traditional polling place election,” Shew said, adding, “I think we’re on pace for that.”

The 2015 election, you may remember, asked voters to approve keeping the Lawrence school district’s local option budget at 33 percent. It passed easily, with more than 84 percent of participating voters checking “yes” on their ballots.

Shew said he’s a fan of mail-in elections because, as he sees it, voters may be more likely to participate if ballots are sent directly to their homes. The alternative is conducting advertising efforts to try to get voters out to polling places.

“I think we pretty much double what we’d have on a traditional polling-place election,” Shew said.

The deadline to have ballots returned to the county clerk’s office is Tuesday, May 2, by noon. Shew said he expects to have all votes counted by late afternoon or early evening that same day.

That noon deadline, he said, addressing misconceptions he said he’d heard surrounding the election, does not mean ballots can be postmarked by that time. It means the ballots must have arrived at the county clerk’s office by noon. Also, Shew said, don’t forget to sign your ballot.

“We do get them back that either are not signed or the wrong person has signed the envelope,” Shew said. “So, we encourage people to sign your ballot and make sure you’re signing the ballot with your name on it.”

Election timeline

Voters have until noon on May 2 to return ballots that were mailed out beginning April 12. Voters can mail the ballot to the address provided or can take the ballot to one of four designated locations: county clerk’s office, 1100 Massachusetts St.; the all-hours drop box on the south side of the County Courthouse at 11th and Massachusetts streets; the satellite office of the Douglas County treasurer in the Dillons store at 3000 W. Sixth St.; or the satellite office of the Douglas County treasurer at 2000 W. 31st St.