Cole County officials are expecting a 10 percent turnout of Jefferson City voters for Tuesday's special election.
Steve Korsmeyer, Cole County clerk, said there's been more activity so far through absentee voting than he saw for the August special election when Jefferson City voters extended the city's half-cent capital improvements sales tax.
The only thing on Tuesday's ballot is the city's quarter-cent public safety sales tax, which is estimated to bring in $2.8 million annually for the police and fire departments.
As of noon Friday, 317 had voted absentee, Korsmeyer said. Around the same time in August, 270 people had voted absentee.
"We had a 5.6 percent turnout in August, and we're ahead of those numbers so far," he said. "We've had more people come in and vote than we did then. That's why I raised the prediction up a little bit."
Korsmeyer suggested the differences between the tax proposals might affect the turnout.
"In August, it was an extension of the tax," he said. "Now, it's a new tax. A brand new tax I don't know what to expect yet."
Polls will be open 6 a.m.-7 p.m. Tuesday. Polling locations can be found at colecounty.org.
The August election cost the city $22,088; this election will likely cost around the same.
JC Citizens for Public Safety, the committee in support of the ballot measure, reported having $30,120 in its quarterly report to the Missouri Ethics Commission.
Committees for specific ballot issues or candidates are required to file regular reports to the MEC if their expenses or contributions exceed $1,000.
The committee reported receiving contributions of $100 or more from 27 donors.
The contributors and the amount contributed were:
- Jefferson City Chamber of Commerce Civic Progress, $10,000;
- Jefferson City Firefighters Local 671 PAC, $5,000;
- FOP Lodge 19 PAC LLC, $2,250;
- James George Tergin Inc., Dulle-Trumble Funeral Home, Jefferson City Coca Cola Bottling Company, Inc., Scruggs-Guhleman Lumber Co., Hawthorn Bank, Joe Machens Capital City Ford and Jefferson Bank, $1,000 each;
- Locke Thompson, JC Gymnastics, Tiny Tumblers Gym LLC, Missouri State Council of Fire Fighters PAC, Freeman Mortuary and Logan Gratz, $500 each;
- Shelly David and Reid Millard, $450 each;
- Kiss Incorporated, Jeffrey DeLong and Steven Weaver, $250 each; and
- Peter Grefrath, Jeremy Bowman, Jason Ambler, Andy Lenart, Chris Gosche and Jacob Schnakenburg, $100 each.
So far, the committee had spent $21,901 with $15,024 going toward mailings, $1,745 toward a website, $2,000 for digital advertising, $1,897 for yard signs, $1,033 for palm cards and $201 for voter data, according to the committee's eight-days before the election report.