Kansas independent and judicial-retention candidates face Aug. 3 filing deadline

Independent candidates and judicial-retention candidates seeking places on Kansas’s 2026 general-election ballot have until noon Monday, Aug. 3, to file, Secretary of State Scott Schwab’s office announced.

The deadline is the next stated filing step in the 2026 Kansas election cycle. It applies to the general-election ballot and should not be confused with a primary-election filing deadline.

Who is covered

The Aug. 3 cutoff applies specifically to independent candidates and judicial-retention candidates. The Kansas Secretary of State’s June 1 announcement set noon as the deadline for those two groups to file for general-election ballot placement.

The announcement does not identify individual candidates who may file, the offices or retention contests involved, or a complete list of races that could appear on the ballot. It also does not state how many independent or judicial-retention candidates had filed as of Aug. 2.

Those limits mean the announced deadline establishes the filing timetable, but does not by itself provide final information about candidate qualification or the full set of November contests.

Partisan filing period has closed

The deadline follows the close of Kansas’s partisan candidate-filing period, which ended at noon June 1, 2026. The separate dates place independent and judicial-retention filings on a later schedule than partisan candidate filings.

Schwab’s office announced both dates in its June 1 filing-deadline release. The office said the later deadline is for placement on the general-election ballot.

What happens next

The noon Aug. 3 deadline is the immediate remaining filing date identified in the announcement for independent and judicial-retention candidates. Final filing information will be needed to establish which candidates qualified and which independent or judicial-retention contests will appear on November ballots.

For candidates covered by the announcement, the stated deadline is noon Monday, Aug. 3. The available announcement provides the deadline and the affected candidate categories, rather than final filing results.