At the start of 1855, the free-staters and the pro-slavery people around Lawrence started fighting for political power. At the Kansas elections on March 30, 1855, about 700-1,000 pro-slavery people from Missouri voted at the election. They came in more than 100 wagons. They had guns, rifles, pistols, and Bowie knives. They also brought two pieces of artillery. No one argued with them because there were a lot of them. They went back to Missouri the next day. Before the election, the government did a census which showed that 8,601 people lived in Kansas. Of those 2,905 were voters; Lawrence had 369 voters. There were a total of 2,905 voters in the territory, but there were 6,307 votes counted. 1,034 votes were cast in Lawrence, but 802 were from people who did not live in Kansas. Only 232 of the votes were real. At the election, a man named Silas Bond was shot at, and he ran away. He was shot at because he was "an obnoxious free-state man."