Bourbon County voter turnout improves

Fort Scott, Kan. -- With multiple sales tax questions and several city council and school board seats open, the citizens of Bourbon County made their voices heard this past week.

More than 23.5 percent of the county's nearly 10,500 voters made their way to the polls to cast ballots for city officials, school boards and sales taxes. According to Bourbon County Clerk Joanne Long, the turnout was slightly better than the April election in 2007 (22.78 percent) and quite a bit better than the election in April 2009 (14.65). She added that in areas where voters were deciding on city officials and sales tax questions, the turnout in each precinct ranged from 24-34 percent, which Long said was "decent and slightly above normal" for that type of election.

"Unfortunately, it's always smaller than other elections but it was pretty good for us," Long said.

The increased turnout is likely a result of the interest surrounding sales tax questions in Fort Scott, Mapleton and Uniontown. According to unofficial results, Fort Scott voters passed a half-cent sales tax to fund $3.9 million in renovations to the municipal pool and an addition to Buck Run Community Center by a count of 1,185 yes ballots to 500 no votes.

In Mapleton, voters narrowly passed a 1 percent sales tax by a vote of 11 yes votes to 9 no votes, according to unofficial results. Uniontown also passed a 1 percent sales tax, 42-21, to help finance public services.

In addition, much of the county was voting on five of the seven spots on the USD 234 school board -- four of which were contested, as well as several city councils spots throughout the county.

Because voter turnout is ever-changing, Long said that it is always difficult to make sure that there are enough ballots printed while trying to reduce the amount of wasted ballots.

"You need to have a ballot available for everyone that wants to show up, but you know 100 percent are not going to show up," she said. "That's one of the things that I fight with every year."

For Tuesday's election, Long said she printed enough ballots for a 40 percent turnout. She noted one of the 20 precincts ran low on ballots, but did not run short.

To determine how many ballots to print, she takes into account the turnout history from similar elections while also taking into consideration any recent issues that the community may be vocal about. For example, Long said she took into account the U-234 school board's decision to transition to attendance centers.

With a majority of the school board seats open, she anticipated a larger turnout.

In May 2010, the USD 234 Board of Education approved a district proposal to reconfigure Winfield Scott and Eugene Ware elementary schools into attendance centers for the 2010-'11 school year to benefit students and help the district save money. Previously, both campuses had kindergarten through fifth-grade students. Now Winfield Scott serves kindergarten through second-grade students, and Eugene Ware, third-through-fifth-grade youngsters.

In the November 2010 election, when county and state races appeared on the ballot, turnout was 46.2 percent, Long said. In the November 2008 presidential election, 67.14 percent of voters went to the polls.