Seven-year-old Tommy Latham and his brother, Jesse, 4, peeked under the curtain of the voting booth to watch their mother.

“As I was explaining to my children, it’s important to take part in your government,” Tommy’s mother, Chris Latham, said a few minutes later.

But not that many voters feel the same way  a check of four Lawrence precincts during the noon hour showed turnout had been fairly light Tuesday morning.

In Tuesday’s statewide primary, Republicans and Democrats are picking candidates to run in the Nov. 5 general election. Most of the races are on the Republican side, which include hot contests for the GOP nominations for governor and for attorney general. Polls close at 7 p.m.

“I’m teaching my kids about Kansas state government today as I patiently wait for school to start,” Latham said after voting at Lawrence’s 18th Precinct at the Mustard Seed Church, 700 Wakarusa Dr.

“They were watching me vote and I was explaining to them about importance of voting,” she said.

Latham was among 209 people who had voted at the polling place, which has 2,228 western Lawrence registered voters, making it the largest county precinct.

“That’s not very good,” Douglas County Clerk Patty Jaimes said when told of the turnout. “You never know, they may have a big rush after 5.”

Betty Lane, supervising judge at the Mustard Seed precinct, said mostly Republicans were coming to vote. She said there had been sporadic voting after having an early-morning line of voters.

“I think there were some areas that had a rush right when the polls open, but that’s not unusual,” Jaimes said.

Across town at the East Lawrence Center, 1245 E. 15th, there hadn’t been much for election workers to do, said R.W. Eggert, supervising judge of the 35th Precinct.

“It’s been a pretty light turnout, especially the Democrats,” Eggert said, looking at the five empty voting booths. “There’s not much to vote on.”

Only 40 of the precinct’s 849 voters had cast ballots by 11:10 a.m.

It was the same story at a large precinct on the south side of Lawrence.

“I think it’s pretty slow, but that’s what’s predicted,” said Debby Eltschinger, supervising judge at the First Presbyterian Church, 2415 Clinton Parkway, the polling place for the 14th Precinct.

As of 11:30 a.m., 107 out of 2,102 registered voters had cast ballots there.

At another large precinct on the north side of town, election workers were waiting patiently for voters.

“We’ve done our 10 percent and if all goes well, we’ll have 20 percent,” said Steve Nelson, supervising judge at Deerfield School, 101 Lawrence Ave., the polling place for the 5th Precinct.

As of 12:30 p.m., 80 of the 807 voters registered in the precinct had voted.

Ethel Sherman, another election worker there, said the turnout is usually 35 percent to 50 percent for the general election at Deerfield.

“This is not unordinary for a primary,” she said.