Advance voting locations statewide and in Topeka are experiencing a surge of people voting early in-person.

Shawnee County election commissioner Andrew Howell said that, as of around 10:15 a.m. Wednesday, 17,800 voters had voted early in-person so far this election.

“We’re not quite double, but it’s — depending on which year you compare it to — it is double to some years,” Howell told The Capital-Journal.

“In a presidential (election), 10,000 to 12,000 for the entire two-week period is a fairly average number,” he said. “So I suspect that we’re going to be double what we normally see here. Over 3,000 people the first day. It’s a rare day in the past that we do 1,500 a day.”

The Shawnee County Election Office was busy Wednesday morning with early voters. One of those early voters was Gov. Laura Kelly. When voting early in other recent elections, Kelly has often been one of only a small handful of voters filling out their ballots. This time, several of the booths were filled.

“I think there’s a lot of energy and excitement around the races this year, particularly obviously at the presidential level, but I think even locally on the state level,” Kelly said of the turnout.

“I come out to vote early so that I make sure I get it done,” she told reporters. “It is fun to come to the polls on Election Day. I used to enjoy that a lot, but there’s always a chance that something — you know, ice storms or whatever — could happen. So I like to get it done.”

Early in-person voting is up in Kansas

Election offices across the state are experiencing a similar boom in in-person advance voting.

The Kansas Secretary of State’s Office reported that, through Tuesday, there had been 252,482 ballots statewide had been cast in person.

That’s 54% above 2020, when there had been 163,527 in-person advance ballots at this point. It’s 80% above 2016, when there had been 139,912 early in-person voters.

More: Saline County residents are voting early in droves, averaging 700 a day

Mail voting lags behind

While in-person is up, mail voting is down locally and statewide.

“Mail is down,” Howell said. “What I don’t know if people that normally vote by mail are now just coming and voting early, I wonder.”

Mail voting has also been the subject of criticism from some Republicans after former President Donald Trump in 2020 discouraged Republicans from voting by mail. He called voting by mail “corrupt” and alleged it led to cheating. Some Kansas Republican lawmakers have sought to end the three-day grace period.

Secretary of State’s Office statistics also show that Democrats are leading Republicans in voting by mail.

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Scott Schwab has been critical of the U.S. Postal Service’s handling of election mail, blaming USPS failures for disenfranchising voters in the August primary.

More: Scott Schwab ’empathetic’ to USPS issues but says voters shouldn’t rely on it

Kansas election offices had mailed out 161,410 advance ballots through Tuesday, of which 87,600 had already been returned, according to the Secretary of State’s Office.

Compared to this point in the last two presidential elections: In 2020 — in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic — there had been 501,446 mail ballots sent with 279,950 returned, and in 2016, there had been 191,307 sent with 102,130 returned.

At least on the state level, the total number of early ballots cast in-person plus mail ballots that have been delivered so far in 2024 outpaces 2016 by about 41%. But it doesn’t outpace 2020, when mail voting skyrocketed during the pandemic.

So far this year, 340,082 advance ballots have been cast. At this point in 2020, there had been a total of 443,477 ballots, including both returned mail ballots and in-person voting. In 2016, there had been 242,042 in total.

‘Don’t wait’ until last minute to vote early

Voters in Kansas can vote early by mail and in-person, or they can wait until Election Day. Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Tuesday.

Early in-person voting will continue until Monday. This week, voters can go to the Shawnee County Election Office at 3420 S.W. Van Buren Street between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m. on weekdays. Next week, voters can go between 8 a.m. and noon on Monday.

“Please, if you’re going to vote early, don’t wait until noon on Monday, because there will be a line,” Howell said. “We’ve managed to keep it under five minutes on average. Most people it’s two minutes or less, but occasionally it’ll get a five-minute line. Monday at 11 o’clock, there will be a line, and it will be significant.”

Jason Alatidd is a Statehouse reporter for The Topeka Capital-Journal. He can be reached by email at jalatidd@gannett.com. Follow him on X @Jason_Alatidd.