Speaking about the upcoming Kentucky General Election, Secretary of State Michael Adams summed up his message during Wednesday’s Owensboro Rotary Club meeting simply: “Kentucky voters should have confidence in our system.”
Adams detailed changes that have been made to the election process since the Primary, dismissed concerns of voter fraud, and explained that Kentuckians have more opportunity than ever to cast their ballots.
Much of the time was spent discussing the absentee voting process, though Adams encouraged people to take advantage of the expanded early in-person voting — even saying that’s how he’d be casting his ballot.
“I don’t want to break any one leg of our three-legged stool of elections,” Adams said. “If there’s too much absentee balloting, it’s going to glut our system and it’s going to take time to count all these ballots. I don’t want too much in-person voting on one day. If we have everybody vote in person in one day in a 12-hour span, with fewer locations than we normally have, then we’re going to crash that part of our system. The release valve is early voting in person.”
Though some western states mail out ballots to everyone, Adams said Kentuckians must apply for an absentee ballot and prove their identity before it is mailed out. The deadline to request a ballot is Oct. 9.
More than 400,000 Kentuckians have already requested absentee ballots, Adams said.
While state officials recommended utilizing absentee ballots to vote in the Primary Election, Adams said the hope for the General Election is to vote in person early.
“The biggest piece of feedback I got, and I agree with it 100%, is folks wanted more opportunity to vote in person in the General Election than we had the Primary,” Adams said.
So, through a bipartisan agreement with Gov. Andy Beshear, Adams enacted legislation that expands in-person voting to three weeks beginning Oct. 13.
Ballots will be processed as they are received — whether by mail, dropbox or in person — but they will not be counted until Election Night.
Also new for this election will be the requirement for county clerks to contact voters whose absentee ballots have any issues, such as a missing signature or envelope.
“This is the first election in Kentucky history where an absentee voter who makes an innocent mistake on his or her ballot by law must be notified by the county clerk so the voter can fix the mistake,” Adams said.
Voters can also track their absentee ballot to see if it has been processed by visiting govoteky.gov.
Adams also briefly addressed the lack of poll workers. He said the state was facing a shortage even before the pandemic, but they are especially low now.
Though poll workers previously had to be registered as a Repbulican or Democrat, Adams said that requirement has been waived.
“Now, any registered voter, regardless of party, can be a poll worker,” he said. “I did that to make available the 10% of our voters who are not Democrats or Republicans. I also did it because it’s discriminatory to tell an Independent he or she can’t be a poll worker.”
More information about the election process — including registering to vote, becoming a poll worker, etc. can be found on the state site here.
