A member of the Anderson County Board of Elections is calling out Anderson County Clerk Jason Denny for comments he made in last week’s Anderson News about voter ID legislation in Frankfort.
“There are some factual things we need to be looking at here,” said board member Steve Ashburn, who represents the local Democratic Party. “A couple of things Jason said are wrong.”
Denny, a Republican who chairs the board of elections, was commenting on pending voter ID legislation that would require voters to present a photo ID when voting or, if using other forms of identification such as a credit card, fill out an affidavit. Denny said he supported the legislation, but said it doesn’t go far enough.
“To me, this bill is too lax,” Denny said, adding that he would like to see using a credit card for ID done away with. “I want more stringent rules but I’m living with this because it tightens up ID requirements to vote. It has more good than bad in it, but it will help preserve the integrity of the vote.”
Denny also used equated the reason people lock their doors to making voting more secure.
“If we leave this door open, someone is going to come in, sooner or later,” he said.
“Here’s some truth,” Ashburn said. “There were 1.65 million home invasions last year in this country — you can go check that for yourself — but from 2000-2014, and I know this because I stay up on it, there were 31 cases of in-person voter fraud, nationwide. The analogy of a home break-in is wrong.”
Denny said credit cards shouldn’t be used because people get offers for them in the mail every day.
“His analogy is laughable,” said Ashburn. “How many fraudulent credit cards would it take to turn around an election? Show me a number that would change the outcome of an election. I’d like to see someone prove that to me.”
In supporting the legislation, Denny cited reports issued by voter watchdog groups over the past several years that point out Anderson County has more registered voters than people eligible to vote — a problem that can only be solved at the state level because local officials cannot remove people who have died or moved away from the voter rolls.
“That is a made-up fable, made up mostly by Republicans,” Ashburn said. “I challenge any of these so-called groups Jason mentioned.”
With a presidential election on tap for this fall, Ashburn said he is frustrated because Denny’s comments could lead others to believe there is voter fraud.
“2020 is going to be a huge year for us to hear all of this again,” Ashburn said. “My main concern is that [what Denny said] conveys a message that we have a problem.
“Republicans are throwing out voter fraud just to see if it will stick. Show me the fraud. We do not have a voter fraud problem in this county, state or country.”
[click_to_tweet tweet=”Republicans are throwing out voter fraud just to see if it will stick. Show me the fraud. We do not have a voter fraud problem in this county, state, or country. – Steve Ashburn” quote=”Republicans are throwing out voter fraud just to see if it will stick. Show me the fraud. We do not have a voter fraud problem in this county, state, or country. – Steve Ashburn”]
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Written by Ben Carlson. Cross-posted from the
Anderson News via the Kentucky Press News Service.