792,476 people in Kentucky voted early last week, which is more than ever before, according to Republican Secretary of State Michael Adams on X.
That number includes votes made on three days of early voting and six days of absentee voting that could be done in person.
Kentucky voting places will be open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. local time on Tuesday, Election Day. Voters in Kentucky will also choose the next president, as well as legislative races, two constitutional amendments, local ballot proposals, and more.
Adams said that 656,277 people in Kentucky voted early without a reason. A lot of them (52.6%) were registered Republicans. A total of 40.3% of them were registered as Democrats, and 7.1% were registered as Independent or other.
The Kentucky State Board of Elections says that more than 3.5 million people can vote in the general election.
225,696 people in Kentucky voted on the first day of early voting with no reason in 2024. Adams said that 57,154 people voted on the first day of early voting in 2020. “81,961 people voted on the first day of early voting in 2022. So, “Wow.”
Because of health worries during the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, Kentucky allowed people to vote early. At the time, Adams and Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear backed that plan.
Adams told people to “for the love of God, vote early” before early voting started this year. People seemed to take that advice to heart, because lines at polling places started forming almost as soon as the three days of early voting started Thursday.
Trey Grayson, who used to be the Republican Secretary of State, said on X that he worked as a voting officer in Boone County on Saturday.
“We didn’t stop voting from 7 a.m., when we opened, until 30 minutes after the 3 p.m. closing time, so that everyone in line at 3 p.m. could vote,” Grayson said. “The people who voted for us were nice and patient. No one was mean. “Today was nice.”
A false claim of theft in Laurel County
Early voting went pretty well in Kentucky for the most part. A video, though, seemed to show a Laurel County voter switching their vote from former President Donald Trump to Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday.
The video went viral on social media and even reached Lara Trump, co-chair of the Republican National Committee.
This was in reaction to a statement from the State Board of Elections’ general counsel, Taylor Brown. The statement said that the voter showed the video to election officials at the polling place after she had changed her choices and printed her ballot correctly.
“According to what the voter told the County Clerk, she was able to correctly use the touchscreen to highlight the field for Donald Trump and all of her other preferred candidates,” the statement read.
“That recorded all of her preferred selections,” the ExpressVote machine wrote on a paper ballot. The voter could look over the ballot before putting it into an ES&S DS200 poll scanner.
Using what she told the county clerk, the board said, “she was able to successfully deposit her ballot into the DS200 ballot scanner, registering her vote.” The ballot had choices for Donald Trump and her other favorite candidates.
It was said that the voter showed the tape to the county clerk. The worker tried to make the problem happen again with the touchscreen, but when he touched inside the box to choose Trump, he couldn’t.
By touching the machine between fields, he was able to do it again. Still, the clerk took the used machine out of service and called the office of the attorney general. Someone was sent to look into the matter.
The board said that voters in counties with ExpressVote touchscreens should firmly make their choices in the middle of the field set aside for that candidate or answer, using their finger or a stylus.
He also said that people who think they had a problem should first talk to local election officials and then call the attorney general’s election hotline at 1-800-328-VOTE.
“Once the voter left the polling place, she posted the video she had recorded to her social media accounts, adding other accounts of people who are known to spread election fraud claims and saying that her video needed to get “out there,” the statement said.
“In the hours after her video was first posted, the voter spent time on social media reposting posts from accounts that had promoted her video.”
When asked if the voter could be sued for sharing false information even though she knew her vote had been counted correctly, Brown said, “That is up to the police to decide.”
When asked about a voter’s report of a broken machine in Kentucky that wouldn’t pick Trump, Trump, who is co-chair of the RNC, said on X that the GOP’s legal team “immediately investigated.” We called the poll officials straight away.
They took the machine apart, tested it properly, and found no mistakes. This proved that voters could properly cast their votes.