newsfromthestates.com · September 8, 2026
Missouri counties suffered ballot shortages amid high primary turnout | News From The States [ Skip to main content ](#main-content) [   Part of States Newsroom ](https://www.newsfromthestates.com/) search Sort by Latest Relevant Search Search  Stories From The States Colorado ranchers join fight against fossil fuel companies 28:57 https://play.prx.org/e?ge=prx\_14251\_3c1657e2-db5d-478b-98db-eb90ca023a81&uf=https%3A%2F%2Fpublicfeeds.net%2Ff%2F14251%2Fstoriesfromthestates.xml [   Part of States Newsroom ](https://www.newsfromthestates.com/) News ###### Missouri counties suffered ballot shortages amid high primary turnout ## Share [Bluesky](https://www.newsfromthestates.com/#bluesky)[X](https://www.newsfromthestates.com/#x)[Facebook](https://www.newsfromthestates.com/#facebook)[Email](https://www.newsfromthestates.com/#email)[Copy Link](https://www.newsfromthestates.com/#copy_link)  [Missouri](https://www.newsfromthestates.com/state/missouri) [News](https://www.newsfromthestates.com/news) # Missouri counties suffered ballot shortages amid high primary turnout [Gov & Politics](https://www.newsfromthestates.com/category/gov-politics) Sep 08, 2026 | 11:39 am ET By Ryleigh Hindle Share [Bluesky](https://www.newsfromthestates.com/#bluesky)[X](https://www.newsfromthestates.com/#x)[Facebook](https://www.newsfromthestates.com/#facebook)[Email](https://www.newsfromthestates.com/#email)[Copy Link](https://www.newsfromthestates.com/#copy_link)  Description Hawthorn Hill Elementary School was one of the polling locations that ran out of preprinted ballots during the Aug. 4 primary, causing long waits.(Vaughn Wheat/The Beacon). When Kelli Knapp went to vote during the Aug. 4 primary, she was surprised to find a long line of people waiting outside Hawthorn Hill Elementary School in Lee’s Summit. Her husband, who was ahead of her in line, texted her after about 20 minutes of waiting that the poll workers had run out of preprinted Democratic ballots. Once Knapp got to the front, they were out of nonpartisan ballots as well. Voters could use the electronic voting machine authorized under the Americans With Disabilities Act, but that also had a 30-minute plus wait. Knapp, who was on carpool duty that day, ended up voting on a Republican ballot for various issues before she had to leave. The long wait and inability to vote for the candidates she wanted made it a scary and frustrating process, Knapp said. “It felt like there was a restriction on our ability to access” voting, Knapp said. Van Wiley Jr., another voter at Hawthorn Hill, said he arrived at the polls around 5 p.m. but additional ballots didn’t arrive until closer to 7 p.m., the time the polls were scheduled to close. “Somebody finally came to deliver Democratic ballots, and so it was a kind of a little scramble,” Wiley said. “Everybody just grabbed one, you just waited for the guy or the lady ahead of you to finish, and then they passed the pen back to you.” Hawthorn Hill wasn’t the only polling location in Jackson County that ran out of preprinted ballots that day. Fifty-eight out of 103 polling places ran out of some type of ballot, with almost all needing additional nonpartisan ballots. Hawthorn Hill and Holy Spirit Church were the only two that needed additional preprinted Democrat ballots. Other counties across the state had similar experiences. In Pulaski County, preprinted nonpartisan and party-affiliated ballots ran out across some of the county’s smaller polling locations, County Clerk David Ernst said. He said it was the first time it had happened in his eight years of experience. Callaway County Clerk Ronda Miller said in an email that half of the 18 polling locations in the county ran out of nonpartisan paper ballots, adding that they had never had that many people wanting to vote nonpartisan before. In each case, voters had access to an ADA machine if they wanted to vote nonpartisan or Democrat. The culprit for the shortages across all of these counties was higher-than-expected voter turnout. Statewide Democratic turnout — calculated using the state auditor’s race — saw almost 160,000 more people casting votes than in the 2022 primary, an increase of 49.5%. Republican turnout also saw a boost, with over 58,000 more votes cast in the primary this year than in 2022, an increase of almost 10%. Jackson County alone saw over 16,000 more Democratic ballots and over 4,000 more nonpartisan ballots cast than in the 2024 August primary. As voters remained frustrated and wary about a similar situation happening in November, election officials pointed to the difficulties in determining turnout and laid out a plan for improvements. ** ** ## The art of election turnout prediction Determining voter turnout uses a mix of prior data and a little bit of guesswork. Election authorities use turnout numbers from previous primaries and elections to predict how many ballots will be needed. However, big races or issues, like the constitutional amendments Missourians voted on, can easily throw off those numbers as more motivated voters go to the polls. For example, primary turnout in Jackson County typically sits between 26% and 30% of registered voters, or about 68,000 people at the high end. The 2026 primary saw nearly 88,000 people cast votes, representing 35.5% of registered voters. Chris Mann, the research director at the Center for Election Innovation and Research, said preprinted ballot shortages aren’t entirely unusual because of those fluctuations. “It’s not common, but it’s not unexpected,” Mann said. “There’s an art in looking at elections. If you’ve got a big high-profile race that’s spending a lot of money, that might drive turnout in the way the last one didn’t.” The Jackson County Election Board initially ordered 107,610 ballots, costing roughly $38,300. That breaks down into 49,585 Democratic ballots, 54,195 Republican ballots, 965 Libertarian and 2,865 nonpartisan ballots. JCEB Co-director Sara Zorich said the board had ordered more ballots overall this year in anticipation of more people turning out to vote on the constitutional amendments. “It’s not that we didn’t recognize,” Zorich said. “We were doing what we thought was enough, and obviously we fell a little bit short.” It ended up ordering 4,300 additional ballots, most of which were nonpartisan, and 20 additional machines as precincts reported shortages. Tyler Spencer, the other co-director for JCEB, said in an email that primaries in particular can be difficult to plan for because there are multiple ballot types available. He said they don’t want to overprint in any one category and waste resources, especially since Jackson County has 247,018 registered voters. “Ordering enough of every ballot type for every registered voter would mean ordering over 988,000 ballots,” Spencer said. “That would create a significant amount of unnecessary printing expense and waste, which is why (we) use historical turnout and ballot selection to determine reasonable quantities.” Even if the board had elected to print one of each of the four types of ballots based off of previous peak voter turnout of 68,000 ballots cast, it would have resulted in roughly 184,400 unuse