Universal mail-in absentee balloting is not part of the plan Republican Secretary of State Michael Adams is presenting to Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear for an executive order on the November general election.
Adams says his recommendation is practical, not ideological.
“I’ve heard from county clerks across the state, half of them Democrats. I’ve heard from State Boards of Election staff that they doubt we have the capacity, the infrastructure, to repeat June over again.”
He also says he hopes to expand early, in-person voting. “In June we had about 75% vote absentee, 10% vote early in-person, and 15% vote election day. I think we can push a lot more people toward in-person early voting. We have shown we can conduct voting safely in person. It’s safe; the governor, I think agrees with that, that’s why he’s joining me in calling for more locations for in-person voting.”
Adams says he wants to reduce the strain on the mail system and the county clerks by having more early voting and less reliance on absentee ballots, saying there were concerns expressed to him by the State Board of Elections.
There are several provisions of who can vote absentee, such as age, illness, health care workers, and those who have an ill person in the household, which he says can be expanded by leaving it up to the voter.
In June, 29% of registered voters participated, 75% of which were absentee. “If we were to repeat that,” Adams said, “we would have 75% of 72% of the vote, which is our projection for November. That goes from about 800,000 absentee ballots to around two million. That’s a big difference.”
Adams also says he will work with Beshear by trying to help those affected by legislation passed by the General Assembly which forces all voters to present a photo ID at the polling places.
“Whether it’s their own inability to get out and get one, whether it’s the closure of government offices, whether it’s their inability to get a copy of the ID they already have,” he said, “we need to be humane to people who, through no fault of their own, can’t comply with it.”
That would include allowing them to use a credit card or social security card, as an alternative, and sign a voter oath.
President Donald Trump recently floated the idea of delaying the election, which Adams says isn’t a good idea. “Our election day is set by our state constitution. The governor and I, under our emergency powers, can delay an election, but that’s only for a primary. We can’t delay the general.”
Adams said he doesn’t want a postmark deadline for absentee ballots. Instead, he’d prefer opening up absentee voting earlier and closing it earlier, which has two benefits.
“The clerks can transition away from the absentee part and early voting part, and not have two things to do simultaneously that are very labor intensive,” he said. “We can also have the results on election night, because we’ll have all the absentee ballots back. I don’t think the country wants to wait a week to find out who the president is, or the Senate leader is, or any of that.”
Signing up to be a poll worker
On Monday, Adams unveiled an easy way for Kentucky voters to register as poll workers for November’s general election.
The Poll Worker Volunteer Portal is now available at www.govoteky.com. The portal passes an application on to the volunteer’s county clerk, who then will contact the volunteer.
He says the number of poll workers in Kentucky is at a critical low. The availability of poll workers will dictate how many polling locations are available on election day. If a county doesn’t have enough poll workers, it limits the county clerk’s ability to offer in-person voting.
“Just as we’ve made it easy to vote, we’ve made it easy to serve your community by volunteering to work the polls,” Adams said. “Whatever your politics, we need your help so we can offer in-person voting, and also so we can ask less of our elderly poll workers who usually volunteer.”
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Written by Tom Latek. Cross-posted from Kentucky Today.