The Douglas County Elections Office has certified the results of the 2025 election, with no changes to the winners of the Lawrence City Commission election and confirmation of a school board seat that had been too close to call.

Per Monday’s canvass, newcomers Mike Courtney and Kristine Polian won the race for Lawrence City Commission, and incumbents Shannon Kimball and Kelly Jones held strong to their Lawrence school board seats.

The third school board seat was too close to call between newcomer Matt Lancaster and incumbent Bob Byers on election night, with a 33-vote margin. The final canvass confirmed that Lancaster got 6,167 votes, more than Byers’ 6,098.

However, Byers will likely still hold a school board seat, as current board members voted last week to appoint the fourth-place candidate to a vacancy.

The Lawrence Education Association, the district’s union representing both teachers and education support professionals, had endorsed Lancaster. On election night, he hoped his experience as an educator and administrator would also resonate with voters.

Now that his seat is confirmed, Lancaster said he’s looking forward to working with the LEA, educators and education support professionals to meet the board’s living wage goal. 

Lancaster also reflected on the community fallout since Monday’s board meeting on the district’s enrollment shrinkage. The district released updated enrollment numbers, reflecting factors such as fewer births in Douglas County.

“It’s the continuation of a trend,” he said of the statistics. “Just from my background and having worked with figures like that and stuff before, I’d like to think that once I’m sworn in and I’m a member of the board, I can help bridge that gap for folks. You know, not just explain how we got where we are, but also take their concerns … and make that more of a two-way street of communication.”

City commissioners-elect will be sworn into office in December and school board members-elect in January 2026.

Final results

Voter turnout

Of the 80,393 registered voters in Douglas County, 21,459 ballots were counted, marking a 26.7% voter turnout rate. The county counted 8,186 advance ballots, with 13,273 cast in person on Nov. 4. 

Douglas County Clerk Jamie Shew said his office sought to be more proactive about tracking mail-in ballots after more than 200 were not counted in the 2024 election due to issues with the postal system.

Out of 9,072 advance ballots requested via mail this year, residents returned 6,210 to the election office. Shew said the return rate was only slightly lower than they’ve had in the past.

“Very early on, we did see that there were some issues with where ballots were ending up, and so we were able to work with the post office on that, but also contact voters and make sure that they could have some alternative ways to cast their ballots,” Shew said.

He added that many ballots ended up in the wrong city, so his office called the affected voters. Residents who couldn’t leave their homes could get a second mail-in ballot that would arrive on time. Other voters were educated on their options, including voting in person.

Turnout for city elections has seen an uptick since 2021, when general participation was 22.2%, to 2023, with 26.1%. This year’s incremental increase to 26.7% mirrors the slightly elevated turnout Lawrence saw in the primaries.

As with the city primaries, Shew said the change wasn’t easy to attribute to a single source, but active campaigns throughout the county likely played a role.

“So we saw not just in the city of Lawrence that there were some pretty active city campaigns, but in Baldwin City, there was a pretty active mayoral campaign,” he said. “In Eudora, there was pretty active campaigns for city commission, and that always has an impact on turnout.”

He also said the aggregate general participation numbers can be deceiving. 

Voter turnout spiked to 44.35% in Lawrence Precinct 21, with a voting location at Connect Church, 3351 W. 31st St., and 39.63% in Lawrence Precinct 19, with a voting location at the Brandon Woods Smith Center, 4730 Brandon Woods Terrace.

However, numbers start to plummet at other polling places, such as the University of Kansas campus. The Burge Union location at 1601 Irving Hill Road saw only 2.67% engagement.

There were 389 provisional ballots, which are used to record a vote when questions about the voter’s eligibility must be resolved at the canvass. Following Monday’s canvass, 270 ballots were counted, and 119 were not.

In most cases, ballots weren’t counted because they were received before Nov. 7 without a postmark, or before Nov. 7 with a postmark dated after Nov. 4. These categories account for 24 and 28 uncounted provisional ballots, respectively.

The highest number of provisional ballots counted was 106 for advance ballots not returned. Shew said the reason is that people who did not receive their advance ballots by mail were coached to vote in person at polling places. Their ballots are considered provisional to prevent them from voting twice.

Voter registration has reopened. Douglas County residents can register to vote or update their registration online at KSVotes.org.

Wulfe Wulfemeyer (they/them), reporter and news editor, has worked with The Lawrence Times since May 2025. They can be reached at wulfe@lawrencekstimes.com.

Read their complete bio here. Read their work for the Times here.

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