The vote totals listed below are the unofficial results from the LInn County website. They do not include provisional ballots. The results will be audited by the county and the Kansas Secretary of State's office before the Linn County Commission does a final canvass of the votes to make the counts official. That is expected to take two weeks.
By Roger Sims, rsims@linncountyjournal.com
MOUND CITY – By a wide margin on Tuesday, Nov. 5, voters re-elected Jim Johnson of Blue Mound to the 3rd District Linn County Commission seat for a second term. In the 2nd District commission race, Alison Hamilton of rural Pleasanton convincingly beat back two write-in candidates to win that seat as well.
Johnson, a Republican who was the only candidate on the ballot for 3rd District seat, received about 82% of the votes. There were 272 write-in votes to Johnson’s 1,241 votes. Reina Kratzenberg of Centerville began a write-in campaign after Johnson won the primary in August, but the unofficial results did not show who received the write-in votes.
In the 2nd District race, Hamilton received nearly 74% of the votes. Her challengers, Vicki Leonard and Rod Earnest, ran write-in campaigns after the primary. There were 374 write-in ballots, but again the official results do not indicate for whom they were cast.
Linn County voters cast 4,918 ballots on Tuesday. Linn County Clerk David Lamb said it was one of the heaviest voter turnouts in recent history. He said there are more than 7,000 registered voters in the county.
Other county races had expected results. County Clerk David Lamb and Register of Deeds Kristy Schmitz, both Republicans, were both re-elected with more than 98% of the vote. Newcomers to county posts – county treasurer candidate Joannie Reed, county attorney candidate Justin Meeks, and newly appointed Sheriff James Akes – all received more than 98% of the vote.
For state office, Republican incumbent Caryn Tyson of Parker received nearly 86% of the vote in Linn County compared to Libertarian candidate Cullene Lang’s 13% in the 12th District state senate race. Throughout the 12th District – which also includes portions of Allen, Bourbon, Anderson, Miami and Franklin counties – Tyson received 81% of the vote compared to Lang’s 19%.
Republican Rick James of La Cygne was unopposed in his bid to replace Trevor Jacobs in the 4th District House seat. The district covers all of Linn County except Liberty Township in the Parker area. It also covers the northern portion of Bourbon County.
Linn County voters gave James 97% of the vote with less than 3% going to write-ins, and Bourbon County voters gave him 96% of the vote with nearly 3.5% going to write-ins. A Fort Scott Community College student Allie Gregg, a Democrat, waged a last-minute write-in campaign for the seat.
In national races, Linn County voters cast nearly 4,000 votes for Republican Donald Trump to return to the White House. That was about 81% of the vote. Democrat Kamala Harris received 842 votes, or just over 17%. Robert Kennedy Jr. received 53 votes and Libertarian candidate Chase Oliver received 12 votes, and 13 people cast write-in ballots. Statewide, Trump received 57% of the vote.
In the race for the U.S. House 2nd District, Republican Derek Schmidt received 57% of the votes throughout the district, which runs from the Nebraska border to the Oklahoma border in extreme eastern Kansas. Democrat Nancy Boyda received 38% of votes throughout the district.
Voters in Linn County were less kind to the former representative: Boyda received 18% of the vote to Schmidt’s 77%.
In the vote to retain appeals judges and 6th Judicial District judges, all received enough votes (in the 60% to 80% range) to remain in their jobs.
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