photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

The Douglas County Elections Office on West 23rd Street is pictured on July 13, 2022.

Early voter turnout for the August primary election is pretty typical so far, according to Douglas County’s top elections official, but one unusual race on the ballot is causing some confusion ahead of election day next Tuesday.

Douglas County Clerk Jamie Shew told the Journal-World Monday afternoon that he’d been hearing questions about one seat in particular — a special two-year term on the Lawrence school board to fill the seat vacated when board member Andrew Nussbaum resigned less than seven months after being elected in 2021. There’s a primary to fill the seat because four candidates have filed for it — incumbent board member Shannon Kimball and newcomers Ariel Miner, Justine Burton and Tierra Teske. Teske has since told the Journal-World she’s moving and does not intend to campaign for the seat.

But four other seats on the board are also up for election as the terms of Kimball, Vice President Paula Vann, Past President Erica Hill and board member Carole Cadue-Blackwood expire. There’s a much larger list of nine candidates vying for those seats: Cadue-Blackwood, Yolanda Franklin, Anne Costello, Kevin Coronado, Edward “E.J.” Gonzales, Ronald “G.R.” Gordon-Ross, Rachel Stumblingbear, Brandon Moore and Jody Meyer.

But there’s also no primary election for those four other seats; a primary would have been triggered only if more than three times as many people as the number of open seats filed for election.

“There’s a lot of forums that are going on right now, so people are coming in expecting that both school board races are on this ballot,” Shew told the Journal-World. “…The regular term race is in November, so we’ve had a number of people who have come in and said ‘Well, I went to the forum and I don’t see the candidate that I like,’ and we’re (having to tell them) that race will be there in November. That’s probably been the one thing I’ve seen, just recognizing that this is just an unexpired term; this isn’t both of the school board races.”

Beyond that quirk in this year’s primary, Shew said early voting turnout has been what he’d expect so far: slow.

Shew said as of Monday, 195 people have voted in person at the Douglas County Elections Office, 711 W. 23rd St., and about 300 advance ballots sent via mail have been returned. The roughly 500 ballots cast so far is pretty standard for a municipal primary in Douglas County, Shew added. Voters in Lawrence are narrowing the field not just for the special school board seat but also for three expiring terms on the Lawrence City Commission, which eight candidates are running for.

“Douglas County has always kind of struggled with turnout for August elections,” Shew said. “I think a lot of people are out of town. We have seen when the municipal primaries moved to August, I think the past couple we’ve had about 6,000 voters total. When you compare our advance numbers to prior city-school primaries, it’s about the same.”

Shew said the Elections Office was a bit busier Monday than it has been so far, and he expects turnout to continue picking up as the election approaches. That’s pretty typical of city-school elections, he added, given that they are nonpartisan; even year elections often generate more voting because of political parties’ efforts to get out the vote.

“I think a lot of people are doing research and trying to figure out candidates,” Shew said. “…A lot of people are relying on media and other outlets to try to do research before they head to the polls, so what we normally see is over the next couple of days, it should increase as we go on.”

The deadline to request an advance ballot for the primary election via the mail is Tuesday, July 25, and advance voting in person continues through Monday, July 31, at noon. The polls are open on primary election day, Tuesday, Aug. 1, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.