Kansas City mayor turned away from polling place after making video about importance of voting

'I made a video this morning about the importance of voting and then got turned away because I wasn’t in the system even though I’ve voted there for 11 years, including for myself four times'

The Mayor of Kansas City, Quinton Lucas, was up before the dawn on Tuesday morning, making a video for his constituents about the importance of voting in the 2020 election.

“Get out and get out to vote, exercise your right to vote. We’ve got a presidential primary today in Missouri, no matter who you vote for, no matter which side, it’s important that we have our voices heard,” he said.

Then, when he went to have his own voice heard, he was turned away at the poll.

“I made a video this morning about the importance of voting and then got turned away because I wasn’t in the system even though I’ve voted there for 11 years, including for myself four times! Go figure, but that’s ok. We’ll be back later today,” he wrote in a tweet.

Eventually the mayor returned and was able to cast his ballot.

According to NBC News’ Vaughn Hillyard, the election board told the mayor that his rejection was due to a poll worker entering his name into the system incorrectly. However, the mayor noted that multiple poll workers tried to make it work over the course of 15 minutes, suggesting they all had to have misspelled his name.

An election representative for the Kansas City Board of Election Commissioners told KCTV News 5 that the poll workers are elderly and might have had issues with the technology at the polling places.

She said the mayor suggested it was time for them to get younger, more technologically inclined volunteers to run the polling stations.

Users replying to the mayor’s Twitter post pointed out that the issue may be indicative of more than just an input error.

“You’re saying that’s okay because you can go back, but it’s not ok because it is a real issue,” Twitter user @KDHaynesPR tweeted back.

Another user, @lilybrown27, said they had experienced similar issues.

“This happened to me this morning too. I’m at a complete loss. I have all the right forms of ID, registered by the deadline, and had my voter ID card. And then they just get to tell me I can’t vote? Sounds like the system is broken,” they said.

A spokesman for Mr Lucas suggested the mayor was aware that without his position of privilege in the city, that situation may have played out differently, and he may not have been allowed to vote.