Voter registration spiked in Kansas and Missouri after Roe reversal, ahead of primaries
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KCQ Votes: Answering questions on August primaries
The Star’s Service Journalism team is providing information you need to know about issues, voting laws and election procedures for Kansas, Missouri and the KC area.
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The nonpartisan election guide website Vote.org recorded a huge bump in voter registrations in Kansas and Missouri on Friday, June 24, the day Roe v. Wade was overturned.
The website allows people from around the country to register to vote online, explains state and local election rules, provides key voting deadlines and more. The organization describes itself as “the largest nonpartisan voting registration and get-out-the-vote technology platform in America.”
According to Vote.org senior communications director LToya Knighten, Missouri saw a 627% increase in registrations between that day and June 17, one week before the ruling was released.
Kansas saw an even bigger jump: The site recorded a 1,038% increase in voter registrations on the 24. That means more than 10 times the number of people in Kansas registered to vote through the site than did a week earlier.
Kansans will be the first in the country to vote on abortion rights after the Supreme Court’s decision when they vote on a state constitutional amendment that would remove statewide protection of the right to abortion on Aug. 2.
BEHIND THE STORY
MOREYour quick guide to the Kansas abortion amendment
The Kansas state constitution currently protects the right to abortion, but the upcoming Aug. 2 vote will ask voters to decide on an amendment that would get rid of that right.
If Kansans vote yes on the ballot and the amendment passes, the legislature will have the opportunity to impose new restrictions on abortion, which could include banning the procedure. A ban would not go in place immediately, but legislators would be able to pass one. Earlier this year, a state legislator introduced a bill that would have banned and criminalized nearly all abortions, but it never got a hearing and died once the legislative session closed in May.
If Kansans vote no and the amendment does not pass, the legislature would continue to be barred from passing most legislation that impedes on an individual’s access to abortion. Any new abortion restrictions would need to clear an extremely high level of “strict scrutiny” from the court to become law. Current abortion restrictions could be challenged in court, but any actual changes to the current restrictions would depend on Kansas courts ruling that the regulation in question violates the state’s constitution.
All registered voters can participate in the vote, regardless of party affiliation.
The Star answered the most common reader questions we received about the abortion amendment here.
“The spike of 6/24 has been followed by 320% more registrations across the country on the Vote.org tool, and this pattern is mirrored in Kansas and Missouri,” Knighten told The Star via email.
The average number of voter registrations Vote.org records per week is around 23 in Kansas and 12 in Missouri. In the week following the Roe decision, those numbers jumped to 257 in Kansas and 165 in Missouri.
The Kansas City Election Board, which serves Kansas City voters within Jackson County, told The Star that it has seen 5,231 new voter registrations since the Supreme Court decision was handed down. But director Lauri Ealom said that it’s hard to tell whether these registrations were inspired by the abortion rights decision, since her office sees an increase in the final few weeks before every election.
July 6 was the last day to register in Missouri before the Aug. 2 primary, and the last day to register in Kansas is July 12.
“Typically in a primary election, there is an increase in registrations anyway… there’s always a big push in the last three weeks before they can’t register anymore,” she said. “I don’t know if it’s Roe vs. Wade, or is it the primary election?”
If you want more information about how to register to vote, check out this guide.
This story was originally published July 7, 2022 at 6:25 AM.
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