State Rep. Jason Nemes (R-Louisville) and five other voters have filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Louisville challenging the decision by local boards of elections in five of Kentucky’s largest counties to only have one polling place open on primary election day, June 23.
The five voters are from Jefferson, Fayette, Kenton, Boone, and Campbell counties, and Nemes says there are two reasons he decided to lead the action, in which the local boards of those counties are named as defendants as well as Secretary of State Michael Adams, a fellow Republican who is the state’s chief election officer, and Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear.
“One is voter suppression,” he said. “That’s not the intent of the boards of elections, I’m not making that allegation, but that’s the impact. If you have one voting location on Election Day, that will suppress votes.”
Nemes notes Jefferson County has 611,000 registered voters, and while not all of them will vote in the primary, if only 10 percent want to vote on Election Day, that’s 60,000 people. “When you’re talking about 60,000 people from the West End, from the far East End which I represent, from Fern Creek and Valley Station, those people are less likely to drive to the state fairgrounds.”
He says he’s not seeking to have every precinct open on Election Day, “but I am asking for more than one location, which are geographically dispersed, so people can more easily get to it and vote on Election Day.”
Nemes cited an example of where the unintended suppression could be a factor, the 10-way Democratic U.S. Senate Primary, where the base of one of the candidates is Louisville, State Rep. Charles Booker, an African-American who lives in Louisville’s West End.
“We know this effect of having one polling location impacts African-Americans disproportionately,” he said. “If he loses in a close race, and a number of people in Louisville would have voted but didn’t because of the difficulty of going to that location, then I think the integrity of the election is in question and that’s something we can’t stand for.”
The coronavirus pandemic is the second reason for his lawsuit, Nemes says, again using his 10 percent figure of the Jefferson County voters as an example. “If we’re taking it seriously, we don’t put 60,000+ people in one location on the same day. That just seems counter-intuitive.”
He says he disagrees with election officials who say they can’t get enough poll workers. “When I said I had some people who wanted to be precinct officers, they told me to have them call the Jefferson County Board of Elections. I did that and they were turned away, told that they had all they needed.”
Nemes says his proposal would be to have one polling place for each high school, which would total 23 in Jefferson County, for example. “They’re geographically dispersed and that’s what I’ve asked for. If that’s too many, then I’ll take fewer than that. What I’m interested in is having as many as possible, which are geographically dispersed.”
Adams says he agrees with Nemes.
“I’ve consistently communicated my opposition to a single voting location in counties that are large in population or geography. That certainly includes Jefferson, Fayette, Kenton, Boone, and Campbell counties, which are named in this lawsuit.These counties’ decisions to offer only one voting location were made over my explicit objection. I strongly sympathize with concerns raised by the plaintiffs, who prefer to vote in person.”
Adams adds he respects the work of the county clerks. “Ultimately, it is these local election officials who should decide our local election policies, not a federal judge, who would not be equipped to decide where to place voting locations, nor recruit new poll workers after so many have quit for fear of coronavirus, nor train these new poll workers in the dwindling time left before election day.”
Gov. Beshear spoke briefly on the lawsuit at his daily press briefing on Tuesday, saying they would look at it and evaluate it. “I want to make sure that we don’t make voting harder, but we also make it safe.”
He also urged people to go online and request an absentee ballot. “This could be the easiest way to vote that we have ever had in our lifetime. This is the safest way, especially if you fall into a category where you are most at risk for COVID-19.”
No word on when the lawsuit will be heard, but Nemes says he anticipates it being either Friday or early next week.
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Written by Tom Latek. Cross-posted from Kentucky Today.