When the door closes on Humboldt’s half-cent sales tax referendum at high noon Tuesday, Allen County Clerk Sherrie Riebel thinks at least 75 percent of eligible voters will have marked ballots.
Through Thursday afternoon 674 of 1,148 ballots have been returned to the clerk’s office. Of those, 75 were set aside because they were undeliverable, leaving 599 to count.
Ballots were mailed Aug. 22, with the legal aside that they weren’t allowed to be forwarded.
“The 75 returned were to people who had moved since they registered or, in some cases, may have replaced home addresses with post office boxes,” Riebel said.
She urged any registered voter who had not received a ballot to contact her office.
“We’ll get them a ballot if they should have one,” Riebel said.
Returning ballots to the clerk’s office by noon Tuesday is an ironclad outcome of the mail election.
“There will be no ifs, ands or buts,” Riebel stressed. “If a ballot isn’t in the office by noon Tuesday, it won’t be counted.”
That includes ballots returned by mail, which the lion’s share have been.
“It doesn’t matter when one was postmarked,” Riebel added.
Humboldt voters decided a fluoride issue and bonds to support improvements to the town’s swimming pool by mail votes, and in each case participation was high, in the 75 percent or better range. Those opposed to fluoridation of Humboldt’s drinking water had their way in that mail election and proponents of swimming pool improvements held sway.
While ballots must in her office by noon Tuesday, Riebel said their count wouldn’t start until after closing time, 5 p.m.
Determination of the issue should take no more than an hour, she added. “We’ll open the envelopes, stack the ballots in ‘yes’ and ‘no’ piles and then count them.”
IF VOTERS approve the sales tax increase, it will provide foundation funding for improvements to 300 blocks of residential streets.
A half-cent sales tax is expected to generate between $80,000 and $90,000 a year, which alone wouldn’t be enough to fund the project. Supplemental funding will be from annual fuel tax distributions that come Humboldt’s way from the Kansas Department of Transportation.
“We get about $50,000 a year in fuel tax proceeds and plan to use about $30,000 for the special street project,” Tucker said. “The remaining $20,000 will be used each year for regular street maintenance.”
