(KANSAS CITY, Mo.) — The mayor of Kansas City struggled to vote Tuesday in the Missouri presidential primary after a worker mistakenly entered his name in the system.
Mayor Quinton Lucas, a Democrat, made a video about the importance of voting before he headed into his normal polling location, Mount Pleasant Baptist Church, to cast his ballot. But he said a worker couldn’t find his name in the system, even though he had cast ballots for himself at the site several times during 11 years of voting there.
Several other workers were called in to help. He said he was offered the chance to cast a provisional ballot but decided to try to sort out the situation and return later in the day. He later learned that the worker had entered his name into the system as “Lucas Quinton.”
“I think frankly this is a sign that we need to do much better,” Lucas said in a phone interview with The Associated Press.
He said elected officials spend a lot of time talking about election security, but his situation highlights another situation.
“I think the biggest threat to America’s elections is not letting people vote, and I think we saw a little of that challenge today,” he said.
Lucas initially thought the problem was that he was using his utility bill for identification instead of his driver’s licence, which has expired. He said most people wouldn’t have had the pull to figure out what happened.
“A regular person would just say, ‘I guess I’m not on the voter rolls,’” he said.
Shawn Kieffer, director of elections for the Kansas City election board, confirmed that an election judge entered Lucas’ name incorrectly and then didn’t realize the mistake. He said the worker should have called the election board to sort out the mixup.
He described the situation with Lucas as an “anomaly,” noting he hadn’t heard of any other issues.
“It has been going smooth,” he said. “Today is a good day.”
