Story at a glance
- Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas was denied ability to vote due to an administrative error.
- Lucas says that “we gotta do better.”
Hours after he made a video encouraging citizens to vote, Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas claims he was turned away by his local voting center because he “wasn’t in the system,” despite having voted in the district for the last 11 years.
By the way, me writing “but that’s okay,” was me being Midwestern and passive aggressive. It’s really not okay. Talked to the election director this AM and will be following up further. If the mayor can get turned away, think about everyone else… We gotta do better. https://t.co/0cblbstz5R
— Mayor Q (@QuintonLucasKC) March 10, 2020
Lucas attempted to cast a ballot for the Missouri primary election in the early hours on Tuesday morning at Mount Pleasant Baptist Church, according to the Kansas City Star. Despite bringing a utility bill to prove his residency, his name could not be found in the voter registry database. He plans to try again later at the same polling center on Tuesday.
In this case, a poll worker searched Lucas’ name in the system, but it came up as if the mayor wasn’t registered, the Kansas City Star reports. Lauri Ealom, the Democratic director for the Kansas City Board of Elections, said the poll worker mistook Mayor Lucas’s name as “Lucas Quinton” rather than the correct “Quinton Lucas.”
“That’s the only issue that we’ve had this morning,” Ealom said to the Kansas City Star. KCTV5 News also reported that a representative for the Kansas City Board of Election Commissioners noted that poll workers “are elderly and may not be as familiar with the modern technology at polling places.”
Still, Lucas tweeted that “we gotta do better” in response to the incident.
“If the mayor can get turned away, that would mean anybody can . . . so it’s something we all need to try to address,” Lucas concluded.
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