Elections

By a margin of fewer than 900 votes, residents of Kansas City, Missouri, on Tuesday acted to prohibit city officials from moving forward with any streetcar extension without first gaining citywide voter approval. 

Below are the unofficial results for the Aug. 8 special election in Kansas City, Missouri, and other municipalities. You can find full results from the Kansas City Election Board, Jackson County Election Board, Clay County Board of Election Commissioners and Platte County Elections Board.

Updated, Tuesday, 2:21 p.m.  

Streetcar extensions. Minimum wage hikes. Clay Chastain's latest light rail plan. It's okay, we're also feeling a little déjà vu over the issues on Kansas City's Tuesday, Aug. 8, ballot.

A small group of Kansas City voters has approved the creation of a streetcar extension district.

Approximately 3,500 ballots were cast in the special mail-in election that was limited to people living within the boundaries of the proposed streetcar line, which would extend from downtown to UMKC. According to official election results, 2,458 voted for the creation of the district and 1,048 voted against it.

A new constitutional amendment requires Missourians show photo ID when they cast a ballot.

That means if you want to vote in Tuesday’s special election, you’ll need to take your ID into your polling place.

Here’s what you need to know.

I’m registered to vote, and I have a current driver’s license.

The morning he was due in federal court to give a deposition in an ongoing voter registration case, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach tweeted his support for President Trump’s proposal to curb legal immigration.

Trump announced Tuesday a plan to limit legal immigration to highly skilled workers able to pay their own way. Kobach, who is the vice chair of a White House commission on election integrity, praised the president for placing the interests of Americans ahead of “the aliens.”

Below are the unofficial results from Tuesday's municipal elections on the Kansas side of the metro area. 

JOHNSON COUNTY

SHAWNEE MISSION SCHOOL BOARD AT LARGE 6

Heather Ousley
Votes: 7,510
Percent: 42%

Mandi Serrone Hunter
Votes: 3,666
Percent: 21%

Update Aug. 4 5:38 p.m.

Mandi Hunter's lead over at-large incumbent Cindy Neighbor more than doubled Friday afternoon, from seven votes to 18 votes. 

The Johnson County Election updated the primary night vote totals after counting additional mail in ballots post marked by 7:00 Tuesday night and received in the office Friday.

The votes, including provisional ballots, will be canvassed Monday morning.

If Hunter's lead holds she will face Heather Ousley in the general election.

Original story starts here.

Longtime Kansas City transit activist Clay Chastain on Friday launched another campaign for a ballot initiative to create what he called an all-electric, "state-of-the-art transit system."

Question No. 2 on Kansas City's August 8 special election ballot asks for a yes or note vote on whether to approve a 3/8-cent sales tax that would last for 25 years:

Officials from multiple states say they will not turn over voter data requested by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach.

This week, Kobach sent letters to all 50 states requesting their "publicly available voter roll data" to help with the work of a presidential commission on "election integrity" established earlier this year.

Kansas City Councilwoman Teresa Loar on Thursday fired back at people who say she's working against the interests of Kansas Citians. 

At the conclusion of Thursday's public hearing on a proposed single-terminal KCI, Loar defended comments she made in a guest column in the Kansas City Star. 

That commentary prompted Greater Kansas City AFL-CIO President Pat Dujakovich announced he would run for her 2nd District at-large council seat in 2019. 

Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft is confident the state's new voter ID law won’t disenfranchise anyone.

“I’ve spent over 70,000 miles traveling the state over the last two years, and I’ve challenged anyone to point to someone that can’t vote under this law that would’ve been able to vote under the prior law,” says Ashcroft, who was in Blue Springs Tuesday morning to explain how the law has changed. “No one’s been able to find someone.”

A former Kansas legislator who also served as the state agriculture secretary and as a regional official in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is running for governor.

Joshua Svaty, 37, launched his bid for the Democratic nomination Tuesday at the Ellsworth Co-op, not far from the farm where he grew up.

Dressed casually in jeans and an open-collared shirt, Svaty told a small crowd of supporters that he was running to “undo the damage” done to education, health care and the state’s transportation system by Republican Gov. Sam Brownback’s economic policies. 

A highly-anticipated election will soon be underway in Kansas City, Missouri, but you might not know about it — and most Kansas City residents won't get to vote in it.  

In fact, the immediate future of the UMKC streetcar extension is in the hands of about 30,000 registered voters who live in the area roughly between the Missouri River and 53rd street, and State Line Road and Campbell. 

Updated, 4:20 p.m.

President Donald Trump's move to fire FBI Director James Comey shocked Washington Tuesday night. It's only the second time in American history an FBI Director has been dismissed in the middle of a term, and it comes as the FBI investigates ties between the Trump campaign and Russia. 

Reaction from members of Congress from Kansas and Missouri was mixed.

Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill stood on a stage at Park University Thursday and took questions from some of the several hundred people packed into the majestic college chapel.

It was the latest in a string of town halls she's holding around the state.

The Senator was in Sikeston and Hannibal earlier in the week. On Friday she’s scheduled to be in Springfield and Rolla.

The two-term Senator, a Democrat, has made it clear she plans to run for re-election in 2018.

A total of about 60,000 Kansas Citians voted in yesterday’s municipal elections, according to turnout figures from election boards. Kansas City voters in Jackson, Clay, and Platte counties approved $800 million in general obligation bonds, a one-eighth cent sales tax for development on the city’s east side and lessened penalties for marijuana possession.

Shawn Kieffer from the Kansas City Board of Election Commissioners says he’s disappointed with the 18 percent turnout from Jackson County.

Kansas City residents handed city officials a big victory Tuesday night when they approved an $800 million bond package and property tax increase to address the city's infrastructure needs. 

City officials are eager to get to work. City Manager Troy Schulte says his team has already been developing a first-year implementation plan for the first tranche, or portion, of the money. He says he plans to deliver a final version of that plan to the city council by May 1.