Riley County canvasses and certifies 2026 primary election results

Riley County commissioners voted to certify the county's 2026 primary election results after the county clerk's office presented precinct-by-precinct totals and recommendations on provisional ballots.

County Clerk Rich Barelli reviewed the canvass procedures and turned the report over to election staff to read results for each polling location. Election staff reported totals across advanced voting, DS300 machine tallies and hand-count ballots and recommended counting 109 provisional ballots as valid, 42 as partially valid and rejecting 84 provisional ballots for reasons including nonregistration and missing signatures. "We had 3,389 DS300 votes, 43 provisional ballots. Of those, I recommend that 22 be counted as valid, six partially valid, and 15 not valid," the election reader said while summarizing the advanced-voting totals.

After the board had no additional questions, a commissioner moved to approve the valid and partially counted provisional ballots and certify the official results. The motion was seconded and the board voted to approve the certification. The canvass totals recorded 11,581 DS300 votes, 652 advanced mail ballots, 235 provisional ballots and additional federal service and hand-count ballots for an overall total of 12,513 ballots cast.

The clerk's office will post the final canvas results on the Riley County website and transmit them to the Kansas Secretary of State's office as required by state law. Commissioners thanked elections staff for the effort, noting unusual personnel demands during the run-up to the election.