Kentucky Slashes Number of Polling Places Ahead of Primary—Especially Where Black Voters Live

Authored by motherjones.com and submitted by myztero
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On Tuesday, Kentucky voters will determine which Democrat will challenge Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell in November. Recent events have tightened the primary into a competitive race: In March, eight police officers barged into Breonna Taylor’s apartment in Louisville with a battering ram and fatally shot her. According to polling, voters outraged over Taylor’s killing and propelled by the national uprising against systemic racism have narrowed the gap between progressive Charles Booker, a Black state representative with a message about racial justice, and former Marine Amy McGrath, a moderate Democrat.

But the threat of the coronavirus pandemic, coupled with decisions by election officials to close thousands of polling places across Kentucky, leaves many of those newly energized voters in a bind.

Thousands of voters have requested mail-in ballots, but some have yet to receive them just days before the election.

After Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear delayed the primary from mid-May to June 23 in response to the coronavirus pandemic, he issued an executive order requiring the Board of Elections to expand voting by mail, permit early voting, and limit contact among voters and poll workers during in-person voting. About a week later, the Board of Elections directed county clerks across the state to submit plans that included cuts to the number of polling locations in each county. Counties across the state complied; Louisville’s Jefferson County (pop. 767,000) chose a single polling place, a convention and expo hall with spaced-out voting booths, while Fayette County (pop. 319,000) selected the University of Kentucky’s football stadium.

All in all, according to the Washington Post, Kentucky officials have reduced the number of polling places in the state from 3,700 in a typical election year to fewer than 200 this month. Meanwhile, though thousands of voters have requested mail-in ballots in an attempt to avoid in-person voting, some have yet to receive them just days before the election date of June 23, when they must be postmarked.

The decision to cut polling places has drawn concern about the potential for voter suppression, particularly of Black voters, many of whom live in the counties where there will be a single voting location. About 20 percent of residents in Jefferson County are African American, making the county the center of the state’s Black population. In a tweet, LeBron James called out the reduction of Louisville polling sites as an example of systemic racism and oppression.

Said it last week about GA. This is SYSTEMIC RACISM and OPPRESSION. So angry man. 😤😤😤 #BlackLivesMatter ✊🏾 #MoreThanaVote 🖐🏾 https://t.co/o9440Ugyzv — LeBron James (@KingJames) June 20, 2020

But on Thursday night, a federal judge denied a motion in a class-action lawsuit filed by Republican state Rep. Jason Nemes and voters from Kentucky’s Jefferson, Fayette, and Kenton counties. The lawsuit sought a court order to add more polling places to the counties, the three most populous in the state. “The issue before this Court is not whether a hypothetical voter in Kentucky’s upcoming primary election would benefit from additional polling locations,” wrote Judge Charles Simpson III, denying the motion. “Rather, the issue is whether the challenged election procedures result in a cognizable infringement under the Constitution or an injury under the Voting Rights Act. We conclude that it does not.”

“It’s outrageous that officials are seeking to hold in-person elections in a single location.”

James’ tweet also referenced the disastrous primary election in Georgia on June 9, where long waits and issues with voting machines appeared to have primarily affected voters in Black neighborhoods. As my colleague Noah Lanard reported:

Voters in and around Atlanta reported standing in line for hours as machines malfunctioned and precincts ran out of backup ballots during Tuesday’s primary. Clarke said many people were forced to go to the polls because they had not received the absentee ballots they requested. “Everything that could happen or go wrong has gone wrong so far,” Robb Pitts, the chair of the board of commissioners in Atlanta’s Fulton County, told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The problems, Pitts said, stemmed from a perfect storm surrounding the elections: the pandemic, nationwide protests against police brutality, fewer precincts being open, and problems with absentee ballots.

Voting and civil rights experts are watching to see if Kentucky will show the same dysfunction on Tuesday. “It’s outrageous that officials are seeking to hold in-person elections in a single location,” Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, told the Washington Post. “It’s as if Kentucky failed to follow the crisis that unfolded in Wisconsin and Georgia, where officials were woefully unprepared for the turnout on Election Day.”

Lukanda579 on June 22nd, 2020 at 10:30 UTC »

Reading all those stories as a German is truly weird to me. Everyone here receives a letter. You can either use that to send your vote via mail, or take the letter to the polling place. Election is always held on a Sunday so that everyone has the time to vote. (Almost everything in Germany is closed on a Sunday, except the obvious. Gas stations, fast food places, hospital.. You get the idea). And its required that no matter where you live the polling place has to be within a 5 minute walk range. I personally never had to wait longer than a minute to cast my vote. No matter what time I show up.

Koalemos78 on June 22nd, 2020 at 02:24 UTC »

As many of my fellow Kentuckians have pointed out this was a bipartisan measure adopted months ago due to Covid. Every candidate has published daily messages to request your ballot and the state has been advertising the mail in vote daily on local TV and radio stations. I for example have already voted for Charles Booker. There are also several groups raising funds for buses to transport voters in the city of Louisville and I assume other areas have similar measures. This isn't some effort to suppress the vote, it's a measure to suppress the Corona virus.

sjsanto on June 22nd, 2020 at 01:11 UTC »

I’m in Louisville. To be fair, while we definitely have suppression issues- this is not as big of a deal as a lot have been making this out to be. They announced it months ago when they postponed the primaries due to Covid. They allowed anybody to request a mail in ballot- without a reason (which is new this year) and the polling place in jefferson county is a giant convention center - that’s been open for a whole week to allow people to vote early. TARC buses give free rides to the fairgrounds to vote. In fact- I’ll find the link- but they said If just the absentee ballots requested are turned in - we will already have a record setting primary turnout.

I’m more concerned our state legislature decided this was the year to pass a voter ID law- when all the licensing places are still closed secondary to Covid.

EDITED to add-

here is a local article talking about the amount of absentee ballots requested.

https://www.lex18.com/news/state-of-the-commonwealth/absentee-ballot-requests-number-of-early-in-person-votes-point-towards-historically-high-voter-turnout-for-kentuckys-primary

We normally have INSANELY low voter turnout- especially in primaries- which I have to think is partially why McConnell is still around :/

ANOTHER EDIT:

There are a lot of people mentioning that Kentuckians who have requested mail in ballots haven’t gotten them. For some, the reason is this:

Kentucky has closed primaries. You can only vote in the primary of the party you are registered for, and you had to be registered in that party by, I think, Dec 31. This means that nobody registered as an “independent” will be able to vote in the primary. If they request a ballot, they will not get one. If they were independent and moved to a party (say democrat to be able to vote for Bernie) but didn’t do it in time, they won’t receive a ballot. There are a LOT of people that don’t know the details of voting :( we definitely still have a lot of educating to do.