Kentucky’s top election official is battling a bill pushed by members of his own party that would end early voting. Last week, Republican Secretary of State Michael Adams testified against Senate Bill 61. Monday, he told WEKU News that ending Thursday-through Saturday in-person voting is a bad idea – particularly this year.
“We're going into a presidential election, the turnout typically is about 50% higher in a presidential election than it is in an off year election. And the last thing we should be doing is closing the polls.”
During the pandemic, Adams pushed for easier voting options – including early voting – and his slogan is “Make it easy to vote and hard to cheat.” He said allegations of widespread, result-changing voter fraud in Kentucky just aren’t true.
“Typically what vote fraud looks like in Kentucky, it's not millions of votes being hacked over the Internet or wild crazy stuff like that. It's just simple, old-fashioned vote buying in rural areas where there's high poverty, and people will sell a vote for a small amount of money.”
Adams was the top vote-getter last November, outpacing even Governor Beshear. He said he hasn’t thought much about whether his support of early voting will hurt him politically in the future. As of Monday afternoon, seven senators were cosponsors of SB 61 – all of them Republicans.
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