We're two weeks past Kentucky's historic 2020 primary election, and it's been a week since the results were announced. Barring any changes as a result of any requested recanvasses, those statewide results should be certified by the Board of Elections this week.
The primary, postponed a month due to concerns over the Wuhan Chinese virus, incorporated a couple of items that have long been on the wish lists of Kentucky liberals: mail-in voting and early voting. The result was a near-record turnout, but at what cost?
Voting by mail was encouraged because counties severely limited the number of open polling locations. The reason given was a shortage of election officers because of virus fears. One polling place per county wasn't a huge issue in a small county like mine, but all sorts of problems were reported in the state's largest counties. Long lines were reported in Fayette County, which used the University of Kentucky football venue most of us still call Commonwealth Stadium. Voters were impeded in getting to Jefferson County's one location, at the state fairgrounds, due to road work and the frustrating one-way traffic pattern of the ring road surrounding the facility. The doors were locked promptly at 6 p.m. despite a state law that says anyone in line when the polls close is allowed to vote. The single polling places in the largest counties, which are the state's hotspots for the virus, didn't help with the distancing guidelines that are being stressed.
Traditionally, Kentucky allows absentee voting by mail only to those who will be physically unable to go to the polls on Election Day, or unable to cast a vote in person during the absentee voting period. The in-person absentee option was added years ago as a means to combat vote buying. Vote buying has traditionally been this state's most common method of fraud, and mail-in paper absentee ballots were the tool of choice. Limiting those to people with actual disabilities or other reasons that kept them from voting in person has helped cut down the number of vote fraud cases in recent years.
This election was not one that typically lends itself to vote buying. That usually occurs in local elections. This year's balloting was for federal and state races (president, U.S. Senate, state House of Representatives, and half of the state Senate seats) so one wouldn't expect a lot of vote buying in those contests. There will be school board races on the ballot this fall, but those seats aren't as valuable as they once were since the Kentucky Education Reform Act of 1990 stripped much of the power from elected school board members.
There were reports of a number of mail-in ballots being rejected for technical reasons, but not at a rate to seriously impact any races. But other problems were reported as well -- voters getting ballots for the wrong party (Democrats getting Republican primary ballots, and vice versa), absentee ballot requests not being received, completed ballots not arriving at the county clerk's office. These are roadblocks that make vote-by-mail problematic.
One difference between how vote-by-mail was conducted in Kentucky, as opposed to how it's done in other states, is that ballots weren't mailed to everyone on the voter rolls. Kentucky has a problem with people who aren't eligible to vote still remaining on the registration lists, such as people who have moved out-of-state, should be purged due to not voting within a certain number of years as the law requires, and yes, dead people. Every time Kentucky attempts a legal purge of the voter rolls, it seems some advocacy group challenges that move (last year, the Kentucky Democratic Party did so), despite the state being under a federal order to do exactly that. The Kentucky process required those who wanted to vote by mail to request a ballot. For those who wanted to vote in person, they could either vote early at a centralized location (typically the county courthouse), or could vote as usual on Election Day.
That leads to a discussion on early voting. Lots can happen between the time that polls open for universal early voting and Election Day. The term "October surprise" refers to late-breaking news items just prior to the November general election day that could impact the balloting. The most famous one is probably a revelation that President George W. Bush had faced a DUI charge, which came out just a few days before his 2004 faceoff with John Kerry.
Kentucky Democrats had the textbook example of this in their Senate race. As early voting opened, Amy McGrath had a commanding lead over her nearest challenger, state Rep. Charles Booker. But the tide shifted when racial protests broke out and Booker took a prominent role in them. Booker did well on Election Day voting, but when the early votes were counted, McGrath emerged victorious. Many pundits have said that if there'd been no early voting, and all the voting except traditional absentee balloting had been conducted on Election Day, Booker would have won.
Watching national commentators and clueless celebrities weigh in on Kentucky's electoral process was comical. Without the slightest idea about what was really going on, they screamed "voter suppression" and tried to blame Mitch McConnell for silencing those who supported a black candidate (Booker). They pointed to only one polling place in Louisville, with the state's largest black population, as evidence. Kentuckians from both political parties kept trying to point out that the state had conducted no-excuse mail-in voting as a bipartisan effort by a Democrat governor and a Republican secretary of state, and the federal government and McConnell had no role whatsoever in it.
So, what's the verdict on the state's groundbreaking process? And what can we expect for the future? Both Gov. Andy Beshear and Secretary of State Michael Adams seem pleased with the process. Adams called it "a qualified success." But the question is, will this same process be used in November?
Because this is a presidential election, governed by federal law, the date can't be changed. November is a long way off. Surely this nation can be back to some semblance of normalcy over this whole virus thing by then. Can Beshear and Adams come together on a plan again? Will Kentucky still even be in a declared state of emergency that allows them to make changes without legislative approval?
At the very least, there should be more polling places open for those who want to vote in person on Election Day. Ideally, every polling place in every precinct will be open, like normal. We should be at a point in November, concerning the virus, to where that can happen. But if not, there definitely must be more polling places available than what there were last month. At least half of a county's voting stations should be open. Allow voters to vote at any polling place in their county if necessary. But don't restrict voting locations to only one, or just a handful, in each county. Presidential elections typically draw higher turnouts than local and state elections, so that needs to be taken into consideration.
It's long been argued that Kentucky makes it hard for people to vote, and one of the chief complaints is that the polls are open for only 12 hours on Election Day, with no provisions for early voting except bona fide absentees. I've never bought into that argument. That should be plenty of time for anyone who wants to vote to be able to vote on Election Day. But perhaps a couple of hours could be tacked onto the time. Instead of closing the polls at 6 p.m. local time, keep them open until 8. And continue to ensure that anyone in line at closing time be able to cast a ballot.
The hope here is that Adams decides that the process used in June worked well enough for that particular election, but that such drastic measures won't be necessary for November. We should return to Election Day balloting at regularly designated polling places, and leave the mail-in absentees only to those who have traditionally used them. It's time for Kentucky to get back to normal. Conducting a normal November election would go a long way in that process.
