OLATHE, Kan. — KSHB 41 reporter Elyse Schoenig covers Johnson County. She also focuses on issues surrounding the cost of healthcare, saving for retirement and personal debt. Share your story idea with Elyse.
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Election workers at the Johnson County Election Office were hard at work Monday, counting votes by hand after six midterm races across Kansas were so close they now require a close-race audit.
Those races, including the governor's race, are closer than 1% of the vote. The races also include secretary of state, attorney general, and House districts 27, 40 and 117.
"This is a lot of people, and it's interesting to watch how that process works," Wayne Bridges said.
Bridges, an audit observer, had a front-row seat to the process since it's open to the public. He said he has experience working at Johnson County polling places.
"I've learned to trust the system a lot from being at the polling place, and so I just wanted to see what it looked like from here," Bridges said.
Johnson County Election Commissioner Connie Schmidt said bipartisan teams — one Democrat and one Republican — count the votes together. They only count a fraction of the precinct ballots, double-checking ballots in 10% of the county's precincts. Schmidt said the county will be double-checking ballots in a process that takes two or more days.
“We have to actually find, within the 300,000 ballots that were cast, specific precinct ballots that equal 125,000. It’s kind of like finding a needle in a haystack, a bit of a scavenger hunt," Schmidt said.
Schmidt said the audit is a key safeguard built into Kansas law.
"I think it's important for people to know how transparent the process is and how important the audit is. It's an excellent state law because it proves the outcome of our votes," Schmidt said.
She described the effort as a landmark operation involving about 150 to 160 election workers total.
"The finding of all the ballots was a major operation. Most of them have been found. We're still doing some of that on this side, and then they move to the audit-board side to actually be tallied and hand-counted," Schmidt said.
Once workers finish counting a box, an audit-team lead confirms the tally before it moves forward.
Schmidt said she hopes the count will be finished Tuesday night. The report then goes to the secretary of state's office. The county canvass is set for 9 a.m. Friday, when the canvass board will review provisional ballots. The board will reconvene the following Monday at 9 a.m. to certify numbers, which will include all the provisional votes.
"It is a part of history, and this is democracy in action. I actually love it. We created our plan, and it's working quite well," Schmidt said.
Last week, I spoke to Kansas State Representative David Buehler, one of the candidates going through the process himself. He is running for re-election for District 40 in Leavenworth County, one of the races going through the audit.
"I'm not really happy to be in this position, but it is what it is, and I'll trust the process," Buehler said. "There were so many close races across the state. I don't think anybody saw that coming."
For Bridges, watching the audit is a reminder that every vote counts.
"Fifty people showing up makes a big difference, or 25 people changing their mind makes a big difference. So each individual is really important," Bridges said.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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