A nonprofit publication of the Kentucky Center for Public Service Journalism

Historic voter registration drive adds more than 100,000 voters to the rolls for Nov. 8 election


More than 100,000 new voters are on the rolls for the Nov. 8 general election following the largest and longest registration drive in recent Kentucky history led by Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes. Grimes announced the new registration numbers at the kick-off event for the Kentucky Girl Scouts “Promise to Vote” campaign last week.

Approximately 106,000 new voters have signed up to vote since March when Grimes launched Kentucky’s online voter registration portal at GoVoteKY.com, and about 31 percent of the new voters used the online portal to register.

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“GoVoteKY.com has seen major early success! I am thrilled with the results of this historic registration drive, and I’m thankful for the many people who joined us along the way to get more Kentuckians registered to vote,” Grimes said. “The results speak for themselves – never before has this number of Kentuckians registered to vote in such a short amount of time.”

The new voters split roughly evenly between the two major parties with 44,712 voter registering Democrat and 46,328 registering Republican. About 15,380 voters chose to affiliate with another party or as “other.”

Grimes’ drive has helped to break a registration record with the largest Kentucky voter roll ever. The total number of registered voters for the Nov. 8 general election is 3,306,120. Democrats currently make up approximately 51 percent of the electorate. 40 percent of voters are Republican. And 8 percent of voters are identified as “other.”

“I hope that the enthusiasm Kentuckians have shown for registration translates to votes on Election Day,” said Grimes. “Now, I’m calling on all Kentucky voters to promise to vote and participate in our democratic process on Nov. 8.”

Grimes is partnering with the Girl Scouts of Kentucky’s Wilderness Road, Girl Scouts of Kentuckiana, the League of Women Voters, and the Kentucky Historical Society to encourage Kentuckians to cast ballots this fall. Girl Scouts troops across the Commonwealth are leading their “Promise to Vote” campaign up to Election Day to get Kentucky voters to the polls.

Grimes urges Kentucky voters to visit GoVoteKY.com, the state’s new one-stop elections portal for voter resources, before casting their ballots for information on absentee voting, voter registration status, sample ballots, and locating polling places.

Complete registration statistics are available on the State Board of Elections website, elect.ky.gov.


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One Comment

  1. J. Kilmer says:

    So how now are Republicans winning and winning big in State elections? Are Democrats not actually Democrats but registering as such to elect faux candidates in primaries? Are the Dems putting forth candidates that aren’t vote worthy? Are Democrats too busy to, or too unable to vote?

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