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KY Secretary of State discusses final voter registration numbers, last week surge among Independents

Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams says Senate Bill 61, which would end early, in-person voting, is a bad idea — particularly during a presidential election year.
KY Secretary of State
Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams says he was surprised by the surge in voter registrations in the first week of October.

Kentucky’s final voter registration numbers are in and Secretary of State Michael Adams said there was a huge spike before the October 7th deadline. Adams said compared to 2020, more than three times as many Kentuckians registered to vote the last week.

“We had 12,000 new voters register in seven days in October. By law, we had to close the books 29 days out, and we did. But to put that in perspective, the first week of October 2020, we had 3,700.”

Adams said more than 3-million and 548-thousand Kentuckians are registered to vote this year. Republicans outnumber Democrats, 1.66 million to 1.5 million, with more than 380-thousand registered as “other.” He said the biggest part of the last week surge was among Independents.

“They had the biggest increase, they usually do; but even going into an election with a polarized electorate and the Ds and Rs working to get their people registered and voting, it's still the independent voter that is having the biggest rate of increase.”

Adams also praised the 15,000 men and women it takes to staff every precinct in the commonwealth, saying many have been doing so for a long time, most of them for very little pay.

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John McGary is a Lexington native and Navy veteran with three decades of radio, television and newspaper experience.
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