A total of 3,368,119 Kentuckians are registered to vote in the Primary Election on May 22, Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes announced.
Democratic voters represent just more than 50 percent of the electorate with 1.68 million registered voters. Republican voters total 1.39 million or about 41 percent of voters, and 8.5 percent of voters – about 289,000 – affiliate with another party or as “Other.”
The total registered represents a net increase of about 62,000 voters since the 2016 General Election, the last statewide election in the Commonwealth.
“GoVoteKY, our statewide registration initiative, has been wildly successful,” Grimes said. “It is easier than ever before for people to get registered and make changes to their registration online at GoVoteKY.com, our one-stop voter portal. We are excited people – especially young Kentuckians – are using the online tools to become a voter and get prepared to participate in the process.”
More than half of all new registered voters since November 2016 are young people.
Nearly 77,000 18-25 year olds have signed up to vote since the presidential election, representing about 55 percent of all new people on the voting rolls.
Nearly 50,000 new voters used GoVoteKY.com to register since the launch of online voter registration in March 2016. Just more than 21,000 registered as Democrats, 18,700 as Republicans, and about 9,300 as some other affiliation. More than 650,000 Kentuckians have visited the portal and more than 200,000 applications have been submitted and processed.
Most voters added to the rolls in the last year and a half said they were affiliated with the two major parties with 56,178 voters registering Democrat and 65,456 registering Republican. Nearly 18,500 voters chose to affiliate with another party or as “other.”
In each of Kentucky’s six Congressional Districts, Republicans and “Other” observed a net gain of voters while Democrats gained voters in the Third, Fourth, and Sixth Districts but lost in the First, Second and Fifth Districts.
“The people’s interests are better represented when a majority of voters go to the polls to make choices about who serves in elected office,” said Grimes. “This is a huge election year in Kentucky with local offices all the way up to Congressional seats on the ballot. Every Kentucky voter should make it a priority to vote.”
Grimes urges Kentucky voters to visit GoVoteKY.com, the Commonwealth’s one-stop elections portal for voter resources, 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.
