Citing COVID-19 risk, federal lawsuit demands mail-in voting for Nov. 3 KY election
A federal lawsuit filed Wednesday demands that Kentucky voters be allowed to cast mail-in absentee ballots for the Nov. 3 general election from the safety of their homes just as they can for the June 23 primary election, to avoid spreading the novel coronavirus.
A collection of groups and individuals are suing to allow for mail-in absentee voting this November and to suspend the state’s controversial new photo ID law, which would require people to enter public offices to apply for a driver’s license or other official identification if they don’t already have it.
The defendants are Secretary of State Michael Adams, Gov. Andy Beshear and Ben Chandler, chairman of the Kentucky Board of Elections. The offices of Adams and Beshear did not immediately respond Wednesday to requests for comment on the suit.
On the ballot this fall is the presidential contest, Republican U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell’s re-election challenge, all of Kentucky’s U.S. House seats, much of the state legislature and many local races.
Regular voting practices would risk lives during the COVID-19 pandemic, Corey Shapiro, an attorney for the ACLU of Kentucky, wrote in the suit, which was filed in U.S. District Court in Louisville. A spike in COVID-19 cases in Wisconsin in the spring was linked to voters being forced to stand in line for hours during a primary election in that state, Shapiro wrote.
“The COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented public health emergency that poses an ongoing and very real threat to Kentuckians’ ability to participate safely in their electoral democracy,” Shapiro wrote.
Unless the modified rules of the primary election are extended to the general election, Shapiro added, “Kentucky’s election laws will deprive thousands of the chance to participate in the general election in November 2020 by forcing voters to choose between risking the health and safety of themselves and their community or foregoing their constitutional right to vote.”
Plaintiffs in the suit include the League of Women Voters of Kentucky, the Louisville Urban League and the Kentucky State Conference of the NAACP.
“We applaud the expansion of absentee voting for the 2020 primary election, but those changes have not been made for the November 2020 election, which is soon to come,” said Fran Wagner, president of the League of Women Voters of Kentucky.
“We urged the Kentucky General Assembly not to enact additional barriers when it passed Senate Bill 2 (the photo ID law) and again when it overrode the governor’s veto in April,” Wagner said. “The pandemic demonstrates yet another reason why such barriers make voting difficult for far too many. We are advocating for a Kentucky election process that ensures all citizens can vote without risking their health or that of their loved ones.”
There also are several individuals among the plaintiffs who say their health problems would make it risky during the pandemic for them to stand in line and vote at a polling place; to appear at a courthouse to apply for photo identification; or to visit a business to make a copy of their existing photo ID, which is necessary under state law to apply for an absentee ballot.
After the COVID-19 outbreak began in Kentucky, Beshear and Adams agreed to postpone the state’s primary election from May to June and temporarily waive many of the usual restrictions on absentee voting, allowing people to request ballots online and submit them by mail.
The state’s photo ID law takes effect July 15, although state offices remain largely closed to the public for now, so it’s not clear how anyone who does not have an official identification would get one. Courthouses are reopening to hear civil and criminal proceedings on June 1, but the chief justice has not yet announced when the clerk’s offices that issue driver’s licenses will resume business.
