KANSAS CITY, Mo. _ Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas' claim that he was turned away from his polling location early Tuesday morning did "not comport with the facts," Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft said later in the day.
"The first thing I'd say is the mayor was not turned away," Ashcroft said in an interview. "The mayor was allowed to vote. The mayor declined to vote."
Ashcroft and Lucas battled in public statements and tweets over the mayor's claim that he was unable to vote.
Shortly after 7 a.m., Lucas announced on Twitter that he had been turned away at his polling location, Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church at 22nd and Olive streets. Later that morning, officials said the issue was a poll worker error.
Lucas returned and voted Tuesday afternoon in Missouri's Democratic primary for president. Though numerous former contenders remain on the ballot, the two front-runners still in the race are former Vice President Joe Biden and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders, of Vermont.
Lucas declined to say whom he voted for.
But Ashcroft took issue with Lucas' claims. He said the mayor refused a provisional ballot from the poll worker and help from the polling location's supervisor.
"He didn't want to be helped," Ashcroft said. "He wanted to go on Twitter, and I know that's a pretty serious allegation. I hate to make it about somebody."
Lucas replied that it was "disappointing (Ashcroft) would say such a thing."
"Respectfully, the secretary doesn't know what he's talking about," Lucas said. "That's all I have to say. I've actually never met him. I'm sure he's a perfectly nice person who has no idea what my morning was like today."
Lucas' spokeswoman, Morgan Said, said that no one at the polling location Tuesday morning was identified as a supervisor.
When Lucas showed up there, he said he handed over a utility bill as proof of his address. The poll worker searched for his registration but couldn't find it. Lucas said he has voted at that church since 2009.
In an interview shortly after Lucas' Tuesday morning tweet, Lauri Ealom, the Democratic director of the Kansas City Board of Elections, said that the poll worker had inadvertently flipped Lucas' first and last names. She said they hadn't had any other problems at that location and hadn't turned anyone else away.
Tuesday afternoon, Ashcroft acknowledged the poll worker's error, but also took aim at Lucas.
"As we dug into it," Ashcroft said, "we came to the realization that this was not a problem with the Kansas City Election Board, this was not a real problem with the poll worker."
After the poll worker was initially unable to find his registration, Ashcroft said, Lucas was offered the opportunity to speak with a "voting assistance supervisor."
"The mayor declined. The mayor was offered the ability to vote a provisional ballot. He declined and he left," Ashcroft said. "He spent about five minutes total in the building."
Ashcroft said the supervisor overheard the conversation and successfully pulled up the mayor's registration.
"They were ready to let him vote a real ballot," Ashcroft said.
Lucas said he didn't want to vote a provisional ballot because he wanted to ensure his voting record reflected his participation Tuesday. In the 2018 midterm election, Missouri collected 4,494 provisional ballots because would-be voters couldn't be found in the system at the polling locations, and 1,529 of them eventually were counted.
Said said no one at the polling location was identified as a supervisor to Lucas' team.
The incident should serve as a wake-up call when it comes to our elections, Lucas said.
"A lot of us in this region are used to folks talking about voting irregularities, talking about those sorts of issues," Lucas said. "I think the biggest threat to American elections is that Americans can't vote. ... Unfortunately that was the situation I ran into this morning."
