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Barton County Clerk gets perfect score
Canvass Coin Flip
Barton County Commissioner Shawn Hutchinson flipped and caught the coin that determined Brad Kershner to be the winner of the Liberty Township Treasurer office vote. The commissioners, with the assistance of County Administrator Matt Patzner, were the canvassers for the 160 provisional votes that were counted Tuesday morning.
Reif Vote Count
County Commissioner Duane Reif places one of the 160 Provisional Ballots into the voting machine at the Barton County Clerk's office Tuesday morning.

STORY AND PHOTOS

BY KEITH LIPPOLDT

klippoldt@gbtribune.com



The Barton County Board of Commissioners wore a different hat early Tuesday morning at the County Clerk’s office in the courthouse. 

Being one week after the 2024 election, the commissioners became the Barton County Board of Canvassers, in place to count the 160 provisional ballots (188 total, but 28 were from out of county) that were yet to be tallied. The canvass was completed before the commissioners’ Agenda meeting, originally scheduled for 9 a.m.

Ballots are considered provisional for many reasons. Among the more common issues are the voter has moved and voted at the wrong precinct; had no photo ID; had a name change since the registering; or wasn’t registered to vote in the county.

County Clerk Bev Schmeidler and Voter Registration Clerk Darin Dewitt reminded the Canvassers of the process that was required to certify the provisional ballots. Schmeidler also reported some statistics about the election.

“Our unofficial results were a 62.41% voter turnout,” she said. “Yeah. It was a good turnout. Not as high as the 68% in 2020, but we mailed out 3,527 ballots because of COVID. This year we mailed 900. We had 3,618 early voters this year.”

Schmeidler was also pleased with the attitude of the voters, saying “We dealt with a lot of people in a short time, but it went really smooth. We only had a couple of instances where people were unhappy. As fired up as people were for this election, I thought it would be much worse. People were kind and understanding.”

She also reported that the state audit was completed Thursday, and the county was perfect once more.

“We did the audit on Thursday, and again, came out totally clean,” she said. “Matched perfectly. We had to do the U.S. House District One for the second precinct of the First Ward, the Kansas Senate District 33 for Cheyenne Township and county attorney for Buffalo Township. And they came out exactly.”

The only race that could have possibly been affected by the provisional vote count was the Liberty Township Treasurer office that, after the votes were counted Tuesday night showed a tie between Brad Kershner and TR Esfeld, both having received three (3) votes. 

The canvass didn’t uncover any additional votes for either candidate, so the race was determined by a coin flip. Commissioner Shawn Hutchinson flipped a quarter that ended up heads, giving Kershner, predetermined as “heads,” the win.

At this point, the Canvassers headed downstairs to become Commissioners.