Mailed ballots deciding a sales tax vote in Winfield are coming into the Cowley County election office, but not in big numbers.
As of Tuesday, 1,694 ballots had been received, or 29 percent, according to clerk Karen Madison. The ballots, 5,820 of them, were mailed to every voter on May 5 and are due back by noon June 4. Voters are deciding whether to approve a 1-percent sales tax to fund an estimated $14 million public safety center that would combine police and fire departments.
Madison said that turnout is tracking with a 2014 mail-in vote in Winfield that reached 48 percent. “For a mail ballot election, it is poor turnout,” Madison said about Tuesday’s totals. “It should be closer to 65 to 70 percent. Every active voter receives a ballot and there is no charge to mail it back.”
But it might be better than the 40-percent turnout last year for a mail-ballot election in Arkansas City. There, voters overwhelmingly approved a 1-percent sales tax for the local medical center.
(Read more: The Arkansas City Traveler)