Ahead of Kentucky’s primary election on June 23, some west Kentucky voters are navigating absentee mail-in voting for the first time amid the coronavirus pandemic.
Wendy Baxter of Marshall County said she is usually busy with her job as an admission counselor for Sullivan University’s campus in Mayfield, and mailing in a ballot was a matter of convenience for her, even with the pandemic. She said she’s made an effort to vote in every election since she was 18 years old.
“Even during the pandemic, I’ve still been working. To take time to go to the courthouse and do all those sort of things takes a lot of time for me,” Baxter said.
She said the process has been relatively smooth for her, with her registering for an absentee ballot through the Secretary of State’s online portal, receiving her ballot in the mail, and then mailing it back to the county clerk’s office. Registered voters in Kentucky have until Monday, June 15, to request an absentee ballot.
She also believes concerns that mail-in voting is susceptible to fraud or gives an advantage to a political party are not realistic.
“Some political people don’t like the idea of it because maybe they’re afraid it’s going to swing the vote in one direction or the other,” Baxter said. “If you don’t want to do it this way, by all means, go to the courthouse.”
A study published June 9 by Stanford University researchers showed that during normal election circumstances, universal mail-in voting could increase overall voter turnout while not providing any partisan advantage. Election experts also say mail-in voting fraud is miniscule, with no evidence of rampant voting fraud.
“Nothing like that could happen because the systems in place are too tight for anything like that to slip through,” said Jenny Menser, Hopkins County Deputy Clerk. “We have a pretty stringent process. It would be pretty hard to pull something of that magnitude off in Kentucky.”
Menser said some of the safeguards against fraud for absentee mail-in ballots include verifying voter information including one’s address after an individual requests an absentee ballot by entering a birthdate and social security number through the state’s online portal.
If the local county clerk’s office is unsure about the authenticity of a particular ballot, Menser said, the clerk’s office can also verify information through their driver’s license database.
Menser said 3,048 out of the county’s 35,247 registered voters have requested an absentee mail-in ballot as of Wednesday. Absentee mail-in ballots have to be postmarked by election day, June 23.
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