Kentucky
Ballot Security
What Politicians Say
The state has some of the most restrictive voting laws in the US, but unlike other reliably Republican states it moved toward opening more access after the 2020 election.
During the coronavirus pandemic, Democratic Governor Andy Beshear and Republican Secretary of State Michael Adams worked together to temporarily allow in-person early voting and no-excuse vote-by-mail, create voting centers where anyone in a county can cast a ballot and allow people who couldn’t get photo ID due to pandemic-related closures to vote.
After the election, Beshear signed bipartisan legislation that made some of those changes permanent, setting three days of in-person early voting, creating a website to allow voters to request a mail-in ballot and establishing a process for voters to fix rejected mail-in ballots.
Ease of Voting
Although it temporarily expanded access to vote-by-mail during the pandemic, Kentucky remains one of 17 states that require an excuse to vote by mail.
But in-person early voting proved popular enough in 2020 for members of both parties to make it permanent, although the state’s three days remain well below the US average of 23.
The 2021 overhaul also made permanent the use of voting centers and drop boxes.
Ballot Security
Disabled voters in Kentucky are sometimes offered touchscreen voting machines that have been known to count a vote for the wrong candidate.
A provision of the 2021 legislation mandated that those voting machines generate a paper receipt that voters can use to check how they voted.
The bill also limited who can turn in a mail-in ballot to a voter’s immediate family members, housemates and caregivers.
How Politicians Responded to the 2020 Election
Kentucky did not join the Texas lawsuit asking the Supreme Court to intervene in the election, and none of its US representatives signed an amicus brief in support.
Only one of the state’s five Republican US representatives, Harold Rogers, objected to Biden electors from Arizona and Pennsylvania.