By Adam Strunk
It’s looking increasingly likely Avery Anderson will be the Republican party nominee to face incumbent Tim Hodge in the general election for Kansas House District 72.
With all the mail in ballots counted, Anderson’s has received 1317 votes, 44 votes more than those received by candidate Kathy Valentine.
County Clerk Rick Piepho said there remain 53 Republican provisional ballots to be reviewed and counted at the County Canvasing Board meeting August 13, which will make official the election results.
Piepho noted that usually not all provisional ballots get accepted by the canvasing board. For instance in the 2018 general election for the seat, the board accepted 238 out of the 280 provisional ballots cast.
The board would have to accept at least 45 ballots out of 53 and all of those would have to be for Valentine for her to win.
As a small amount of the district is in Butler County, it is possible there are a few provisional ballots in the race in that county as well. The deputy county clerk said they did not have a count of provisional ballots specific to the District 72 race.
In other election news, with write ins counted, Democrat Christy Schunn will be on the general election ballot as the party’s nominee to run against incumbent Randy Hague.
Schunn received at least 684 write in votes, well over the 400 needed to get on the ballot.
