Record number of Kentuckians registered to vote

The 2016 election may be a face-off between the two most disliked presidential candidates in years, but it didn’t keep Kentuckians from registering to vote.

A record number of Kentuckians will be eligible to vote on Election Day, according to Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes.

More than 3.3 million people are registered to vote in the November election, an increase of more than 50,000 from the primary election.

Grimes said 106,000 voters have registered since March, when the state unveiled its online voter registration system.

About 30 percent of all new voters registered online, with younger voters using the online system the most.

“I’m really proud of the work that we’ve done to launch online voter registration,” Grimes said. “It’s an enormous success in Kentucky.”

The majority of voters in Kentucky remain Democrats. Fifty-one percent of voters are Democrats and 40 percent are Republicans, according to Grimes.

Since March, 44,712 new voters registered as Democrats while 46,328 new voters registered as Republicans.

Overall, though, Republicans have gained 77,242 voters compared to only 11,385 for Democrats since the 2015 General Election. Much of that change is attributable to voters switching parties or leaving the state.

Oct. 11 was the deadline for Kentucky residents to register to vote.

So far, absentee votes are higher than they were in the 2012 presidential election, according to Grimes.

This story was originally published October 20, 2016 at 2:12 PM with the headline "Record number of Kentuckians registered to vote."