Tessa Von Fange Went Into Labor While Voting Early in Topeka, and Her Daughter Morgan Arrived at 1:16 a.m. on Election Day

The Shawnee County Election Office in Topeka sees plenty of last-minute voters on the Monday before a general election. It does not usually see one in active labor. Tessa Von Fange went to the office to cast her ballot, and by the time she left, an election worker was telling her husband that the baby was on the way.

Their daughter, Morgan, was born at 1:16 a.m. on Nov. 3, Election Day, weighing 8 pounds, 1 ounce, WIBW reported. Her mother had voted only hours before.

A Ballot Between Contractions

Von Fange, a longtime Topeka voter, told WIBW she did not want to believe what her body was telling her that day. She said she was “100% in denial” right up until her water broke.

The Kansas Reflector, which first reported the scene without naming her, described a Shawnee County woman who voted at the county election office on Monday with contractions coming about five minutes apart. She sat just inside the door, in an area set aside for voters who need help, while a poll worker with emergency medical training brought a ballot to her and stayed close in case she needed more than a pen.

Jake Fisher, the county’s assistant election commissioner, told the Reflector that staff carried her finished ballot through the office and fed it into the tabulator with her permission. Fisher handed her the usual voting sticker, plus a second “Future Voter” sticker for the baby. “She was spectacular,” he said.

The Reflector reported that this was her second pregnancy. Her first labor had been long, so she expected time to spare. This one moved faster than she planned. She had already called a family member to pick her up, and she had volunteered as an election worker in past years. She would have been working this election herself if she had not been pregnant.

The News Chris Von Fange Did Not Expect

Her husband, Chris Von Fange, learned what was happening from a stranger. An election worker told him his wife was in labor, according to a Gray Television report carried by KMVT.

He told the station he was shocked and overwhelmed. Hearing it from an election worker, he told WIBW, brought “millions of questions.”

The answers came in the middle of the night. Morgan was born a little more than an hour after midnight, as polls across Kansas were getting ready to open for the Nov. 3 general election. Neither station named the hospital where she was born, and the family has not shared more about the delivery itself.

What the couple did share is the order of events: a ballot first, then a daughter before sunrise. For a mother who had expected a long labor like her first, the speed of it caught everyone off guard, including the election staff who had made room for her near the door.

Why She Was Voting on Monday

The timing was not an accident of the calendar. Kansas lets voters cast an advance ballot in person at the county election office before Election Day without filing a separate application, according to Shawnee County, whose office sits at 3420 SW Van Buren Street. That window closes quickly. Under Kansas law, in-person advance voting ends at 12 noon on the day before the election, which made that Monday morning one of the last chances to vote early before Election Day itself.

The same statute carries an exception that fits her situation closely: voters with a temporary illness or disability can apply for an advance ballot up until the polls close on Election Day. Kansas election workers are also prepared to bring the ballot to a voter who cannot easily get to a booth. The state’s election officer handbook on accessibility walks poll workers through offering assistance and accommodations so a voter can still cast a private ballot.

In Topeka, that looked like a seat near the door, a ballot carried to her chair and a poll worker who knew what to watch for.

A Birth Story With a Sticker

Babies have a long record of ignoring their parents’ plans. Parent Diaries has followed families like the one whose baby arrived before the doctor could reach the room, and the Idaho couple who received an adoption call just as another baby was on the way. Morgan’s arrival adds a civic twist: she was born on the one day of the year when her mother’s ballot from that morning was being counted alongside everyone else’s.

For the Von Fange family, the souvenir is small and specific: a “Future Voter” sticker, handed over by an election official to a woman who would not leave until her ballot was in the machine.

Morgan will not be old enough to vote in a general election until 2044. When she is, her parents will have a story ready about the first election she was almost part of.

Get stories like this by email. Sign up for The Parent Diaries Letter.

This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the sources linked above.

Image: “Columbia polls run smoothly without long waits (16453695063)” by KOMUnews is licensed under CC BY 2.0.