Around 11.7% of registered Lawrence voters cast a ballot in the 2025 city primary election — more than average, as city-level primaries typically end up around 10%.
Douglas County Clerk Jamie Shew said the volume of candidates and active campaigns this year likely resulted in the higher turnout.
Voters could select up to two of the 13 candidates who ran for Lawrence City Commission. The four who received the highest number of votes — Bob Schumm, Bart Littlejohn, Kristine Polian and Mike Courtney — have advanced to the general election in November. They will vie for the two commission seats held by Littlejohn and Lisa Larsen, who did not file for reelection.
Shew’s office on Monday conducted a canvass, a three-part process to approve and finalize official election results. Ballots from 7,223 of the 61,736 registered voters in Lawrence were certified.
There were 124 provisional ballots, which are used to record a vote when there are questions about the voter’s eligibility that must be resolved at the canvass. Those ultimately counted included 105 ballots, mostly cast in person rather than advance, that were originally flagged for a change of address, submission at a different precinct than assigned to the voter, or other reasons.
The 19 votes not accepted were mostly due to a voter being registered in another county, an expired ID or no ID provided.
In the August 2024 primary election, more than 200 mail-in ballots from Douglas County — and approximately 1,000 statewide — were not counted. The Kansas City postal service had experienced delays and processing issues.
Shew said he saw improvements this year, and ballots arrived timely.
“The election went smoothly thanks to the election workers and staff which made it happen,” Shew said via email.
Here are the final vote totals following the canvass (click here to open this chart in a new tab):
Not enough people filed to run for Lawrence school board to make a primary necessary in that race, but three school board seats will be up for election in November in addition to the city commission race.
The deadline to register to vote or update voter registration for the Nov. 4 general election will be Tuesday, Oct. 14. Douglas County voters can register quickly and/or request a mail ballot online at KSVotes.org.
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Maya Hodison (she/her), equity reporter, can be reached at mhodison@lawrencekstimes.com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
More Election 2025 coverage:
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