Secretary of State Michael Adams spoke in Owensboro on Wednesday at the Green River Area Development District’s monthly board meeting, providing an update on bills regarding the upcoming election as the General Assembly nears the final days of its session.
House Bill 53 – Read the full bill here.
Recently passed, HB 53 mandates that Adams choose at least one ballot scanner after the election concludes and hand recount one race from that county to ensure the machine reports correct numbers.
Adams said the bill is a way to increase trust in elections by adding a hand count audit, yet it is not feasible for the state to do at such a large volume. He noted that this used to be how the Commonwealth counted the votes, which often led to “fraud and corruption” during the hand count and ultimately resulted in a constitutional amendment to stop the hand count.
Nonetheless, Adams thinks it could be valuable from an audit standpoint if randomized.
“That’s what we’re going to do with this bill. Funds have been appropriated to your counties to pay the cost of this; it’s really [minimal], but it’s not nothing. So there’s a million dollars in this bill to [cover] this biennium as we implement this law,” Adams said.
He said he hopes the process can dispel any lingering distrust in the elections.
The bill was filed with the Secretary of State without Gov. Andy Beshear’s signature on April 5, 2024.
HB 44 – Read the full bill here.
Though Beshear vetoed the bill, Adams said it would help the Secretary of State’s office clean up its voter rolls by removing recently deceased voters. The legislature could override Beshear’s veto.
Over the last four years, Adams’ office has removed 200,000 deceased voters. The bill would require the Office of Vital Statistics to provide a death list on or before July 1 of each year.
In addition, the office received the state’s death records since 1900 and removed roughly 11,000 other deceased voters that had been missed.
“I thought that was a really good idea that we did that, and so we asked the legislature to ask the governor in turn to make that permanent,” Adams said.
In Beshear’s dissenting opinion, he said, “House Bill 44 would require the Cabinet for Health and Family Services to provide a copy of the ‘lifetime death records’ to the State Board of Elections on or before July 1 of each year. ‘Lifetime death records’ is not a real term used or understood by the Department of Vital Statistics, so such records cannot be supplied. Instead, the Cabinet for Health and Family Services already provides the State Board of Elections with monthly death records. Therefore, House Bill 44 is not necessary, as the existing policy provides more information than the legislation.’
The bill also includes language requiring the county clerk to provide a monthly list of all persons excused from jury duty for not being U.S. citizens and requiring persons to only receive notices about their voter registration by mail, among other line items.
HB 580 – Read the full bill here.
Adams said that with a large population moving every year, it is hard for government officials to keep up. To combat this, Kentucky has an interstate partnership that allows voter information to be traded as voters move outside state lines, according to Adams.
However, Adams said the partnership does not make it easier to connect with outside states.
“I asked the legislature to give me the ability to go outside of that partnership and just do bilateral agreements with the federal government and get their death records, get their information, but also to do them with the Secretary of State of Virginia and Indiana and Tennessee and so forth,” Adams said.
An amended version of the House bill passed in the Senate, and the bill with its changes is back in the House for review.
Adams said the bill’s passage would increase voter access as it streamlines the voter transferring process.
The bill also allows County Clerks to commandeer public buildings for early voting.
“If taxpayers are paying for buildings, those buildings should be available for voting locations. We already have a law that says that the clerks can commandeer locations for election day and that’s good, but that law didn’t give them the ability for early voting,” Adams said.
Going into the Presidential election, he said they expect a high voter turnout, as the 2020 race saw both candidates bring out a record number of Kentucky voters.
