Half of Cole County’s projected voters turn out Tuesday morning

COLE COUNTY, Mo. (KMIZ)

Cole County is expecting a low number of voters to cast their ballots in the municipal election, but this number is higher than in some previous April elections.

About 6-7% of Cole County voters had cast their ballots by noon Tuesday, according to Cole County Clerk Steve Korsmeyer.

"Normally, we're around a 10% turnout for an April election," Korsmeyer said. "But since the countywide issue with the taxes on there and several races with school board and stuff like that, we kind of pushed it up to 14%. So we're hoping to meet that goal."

The Cole County Director of Elections, Matt Musselman, told ABC 17 News on Monday that there had been 511 total absentee ballots cast so far, with 269 voting in person and 242 occurring by mail.

After making rounds to multiple cities' polling locations Tuesday morning, Korsmeyer said he's hopeful the county will meet or slightly exceed 14% votership.

Election Day also started smoothly. Only one technical issue was reported across the county.

"I think we had one polling location that the date came up wrong on the machine, so we had to do an override on it. But other than that, it's been really, really nice," Korsmeyer said.

He expects another wave of people to vote in the evening, after work hours. He said a chillier start to the morning could also factor in to more voters choosing to head to the polls later in the day.

Besides some specific city council and school board races, every voter in Cole County will get a chance to help decide whether to extend the county's half-cent sales tax for capital improvements.

The tax money goes to fund work on roads and bridges, including construction, repairs and updates. The county sales tax rate, including the half-cent that was approved in 2021, is 5.6%.

Polls close at 7 p.m. Tuesday. A list of polling locations and a sample ballot can be found on the county's website.