It’s Election Day in Kentucky. Here’s how to vote if you haven’t already.
It’s Election Day, Kentucky, and it’s already looking a whole lot different.
Instead of the normal precinct election, where you can likely walk down the street to vote, there will be only one polling place in most Kentucky counties this year, including Fayette County. All in-person voting in Lexington must be done at Kroger Field from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. Anyone in line at 6 p.m. will be allowed to vote.
Local county clerks reduced the number of polling places because many poll workers are older than 65, a demographic that is particularly vulnerable to COVID-19.
So far, 92,611 people in Fayette County have requested an absentee ballot and about 55 percent of people have turned them in. They must be postmarked by June 23 in order to be counted.
If you’re one of the people who hasn’t voted yet, here’s how you do it.
If voting absentee
If you requested an absentee ballot, it should have already come in the mail.
Fill out your ballot and seal and sign both the inner and outer envelope. The postage on the ballot is pre-paid, so as long as you drop it in a mailbox before the mailman comes by Tuesday, it will be counted.
If you’re worried about dropping your ballot in the mail in time, you can take it to Commonwealth Tower Lobby at Kroger Stadium. The ballot must be placed in the secure drop-box by 6 p.m. to count.
If voting in person
If you didn’t request an absentee ballot, or if your absentee ballot never came in the mail, you can still vote in person.
Lexington’s sole polling place is Kroger Field and the voting will occur in the Central Bank Field Club at gates 10 and 11. Polls are open between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. You cannot be turned away if you are in line by 6 p.m.
LexTran will be offering free trips to and from the polling place throughout the day. The first shuttle will leave Bay 6 at the downtown transportation center at 6 a.m. and the last shuttle will leave Kroger Field at 6:45 p.m. They will depart every 15-20 minutes.
To find the polling location in any of Kentucky’s 120 counties, click here.
If you requested an absentee ballot, but it never arrived, you can inform the poll workers when you vote and they will “cancel” your absentee ballot.
Suspected election law violations and voting irregularities should be reported to the Attorney General’s Election Fraud Hotline at 1-800-328-VOTE.
When will we have results?
It will be a while before complete results are known. Since ballots may still be coming by mail after Election Day (they must be postmarked by June 23), and they still have to be counted, many county clerks are waiting to release results until all of the ballots are counted. Others plan to release partial results as they are tallied.
Fayette County Clerk Don Blevins said he will release vote totals June 30, when unofficial results are sent to the Kentucky State Board of Elections.
Kentucky.com will have up-to-the-minute results Tuesday evening and in coming days as vote totals are released.
This story was originally published June 23, 2020 at 8:04 AM.
