By Tom Latek
Kentucky Today
Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams offered a plan to increase the number of polling locations and the recount process during an appearance this week before a House legislative committee.
Adams told the House Elections, Constitutional Amendments, and Intergovernmental Affairs Committee he understood lawmakers didn’t want to make major changes in legislation this year.
Secretary of State Michael Adams is suggesting some changes. (Photo by Tom Latek, Kentucky Today)
“I totally agree with that as applied to our elections,” he testified. “There has been a lot of change, fast, in our voting process over the last three years. hat change has been good, but additional large-scale reforms of our election system would not just confuse our voters, they would limit our ability to learn from previous elections and make improvements based on that knowledge. And, of course, they would cost a lot of money in your first non-budget session since 2019.”
Adams said early voting, approved for the first time in Kentucky during the COVID-19 pandemic, has been working well.
“Although I’m proud of early voting, the solution to long lines is not to add more voting days, at least not in a non-presidential election year. More than four times as many voters voted on Tuesday, Nov. 8, as voted in the three early voting days combined. The lesson here is that in order to reduce lines, we need more voting locations, not more voting days.”
One approach, he said, “Develop a statutory formula to set a floor for how many voting locations a county needs for early voting and election day. I don’t know offhand what that formula should be. It might need to be different in one county than another, because some counties’ voters use early voting more than other counties’ voters. It’s complicated, but I think it’s doable.”
Another would be to incentivize counties to add polling locations when they apply for funding.
Adams is asking for lawmakers to change the recount law.
“It was presented last year by Speaker Osborne and Leader Jenkins, who worked together in bipartisan fashion to develop a clear and workable process. They did not foresee that the process would be misused by bad-faith actors, who seek to create unwarranted doubt in the integrity of our elections. Ironically, this measure became law in the same bill that closed the loophole that had allowed bad-faith actors to demand a recanvass even if they lost by a landslide. We should close the same loophole on recounts, which are far more taxing on our election officials than recanvasses.”
He noted there is a separate law that permits an election challenge upon an allegation of fraud, corruption, or even administrative error.
“But the frivolous lawsuits by people who lack evidence of fraud, corruption, or administrative error, and lose by a wide margin, must be stopped. I won’t sugarcoat it: recount abuse contributed to the high attrition we saw last year in county clerks’ offices.”
Adams also suggested clearer standards in the recount law.
“We recently saw a recount in a state house election in a district that covered two counties. One county promptly performed a hand recount; ultimately, so did the other, but for a time it appeared they would conduct only a machine recount. We should have not different standards that apply in different counties in the same election. Whichever approach you prefer, you should make it universal.”
