Can Kentucky voters in COVID-19 isolation or quarantine still cast a ballot?
Kentucky is in the middle of its third surge of COVID-19 cases — 4,169 Kentuckians have tested positive since Sunday — a disease where public health experts ask you to stay put for 14 days if you either test positive or come into close contact with someone who tests positive.
With less than two weeks to go before Election Day, that could mean trouble for people who haven’t voted or haven’t requested an absentee ballot.
“If you’re housebound for a COVID-related reason, we want you to stay home,” said Fayette County Clerk Don Blevins.
There’s another way for those individuals to vote.
Kentucky law allows people to request a “medical emergency ballot,” an absentee ballot designated for people who find themselves in circumstances where they can’t make it to the polls.
In normal years, this ballot is reserved for people who get sick within 14 days of Election Day, but under the emergency regulations for this year’s election, people have been able to request medical emergency ballots since October 10.
So far, Fayette County has issued four medical emergency ballots, including at least one because someone was asked to quarantine. Voters do not need to specify the medical emergency on the ballot.
The process is relatively simple: if someone comes down with COVID-19 (or any other medical emergency) or is asked to quarantine, they must contact their county clerk’s office to get an application for a medical emergency ballot. (The Fayette County Clerk’s office has been sending the application via email and allowing people to fill it out and send it back via email).
Once the application is filled out, the voter can either get their ballot through the mail (if time permits) or they can send someone to the clerk’s office to pick up the ballot. Since COVID-19 can often require a whole house to quarantine, people are allowed to designate a friend to pick up the ballot.
“It can pretty much be anybody,” said Tracy Merriman, the elections department manager at the Fayette County Clerk’s office.
The voter could then fill out the ballot and return it by mail or using a dropbox.
Kevin Hall, spokesman for the Lexington-Fayette County Health Department, said contact tracers do not ask someone who has tested positive or is being asked to quarantine whether or not they have voted, but can tell them about the medical emergency ballot if the person asks.
Blevins said the county clerk’s office has been working with the health department to ensure polling locations follow Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance. He said there are some backup poll workers available if workers were to get sick, but that its still possible that a polling location might have to close if there is a breakout among staff.
“There’s a certain level of planning where if there’s an act of God, there’s an act of God,” Blevins said. “You just have to react to it.”
As of Wednesday, 23,109 people had voted in person in Fayette County and the clerk’s office had received more than 67,000 mail-ballots, the equivalent of roughly 36 percent turnout. Blevins has raised concern that not enough Lexingtonians are voting early, which could potentially lead to long lines at Fayette County’s eight polling locations on Election Day.
“We need to be voting early for a hundred reasons,” Blevins said. “You need to be voting right now.”
This story was originally published October 22, 2020 at 2:59 PM.
