New plan gets mail-in ballots to Lexington voters on time despite office quarantine
Although it initially appeared that coronavirus was going to delay the mailing of absentee ballots to Fayette County voters, County Clerk Don Blevins said Tuesday that a new plan will allow the packets to go out on time.
On Monday, Blevins sent the county’s elections department staff members home for a two-week quarantine, per CDC guidelines, because they had been exposed to an employee who tested positive for COVID-19.
Calling it a “devastating setback,” Blevins said then that the temporary shutdown would delay the mailing of ballots.
But on Tuesday afternoon, Blevins said elections officers — temporary workers who normally work at the polls on election day — have been hired to create the ballot packages. Ballots will be mailed to voters without delay in the order the requests were received, he said in a news release.
“From a voter’s perspective, nothing’s changed,” Blevins said in an interview Tuesday afternoon.
People who have already requested an absentee ballot should expect it to arrive in the next few weeks, the release stated. About 45,000 Fayette County residents had requested mail-in ballots as of Friday, Blevins has said.
To request a mail-in ballot or check to make sure your registration reflects your current address, visit GoVoteKY.com.
Blevins said he hopes to have locations for in-person voting for the Nov. 3 election finalized by the end of this week.
Blevins said in the interview that 12 elections officers have been hired as temporary workers to fill in for his staff. They are working out of the office while wearing masks and following social distancing guidelines.
He said 28 other elections officers will be stationed at a warehouse. Eight will handle intake of the mail-in ballots and verify the signatures on them, while 20 others will open and scan the ballots.
Kentucky precinct elections officers who work the polls on election day are tasked with ensuring that voting is conducted in a fair, orderly fashion. Blevins said those handling the absentee ballots will receive training, too.
In the spring, Blevins said members of his staff from other departments were pulled in to help with the unprecedented number of absentee ballots during the primary election. They won’t be available to help in the general election because the workload has increased in their own departments, which are now open to foot traffic. Those departments are seeing a wave of increased paperwork as a result of mortgage refinances and car sales.
The cost of hiring the temporary workers is expected to be offset by a state grant, Blevins said.
Blevins said seven elections department employees who normally would be responsible for the absentee ballots are quarantining. Several of them have now been set up to work from home and are handling voter registrations and overseeing the production of mailing labels for the absentee ballots.
Blevins said he hopes to bring his staff back to the elections office Sept. 28. Other departments in the Fayette County clerk’s office are open and were not affected.
As of Tuesday afternoon, phones at the Fayette County elections department were not being answered because of the temporary shutdown, though the clerk’s office is working on a solution to that problem. In the meantime, the office directed people with questions to call the State Board of Elections at 800-246-1399.
Blevins said he reached out to the city for help when he learned that his staff would have to quarantine. City employees helped with technical issues, such as getting remote computer connections established, city spokeswoman Susan Straub said.
“I am very fortunate to have partners that we can leverage quickly. Together, we have managed to dodge the proverbial bullet,” Blevins said in the news release.
“We wanted to help in any way we could,” Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton said in the release. “The election is important, and there should be no barriers to voting, certainly not COVID-19.”
This story was originally published September 15, 2020 at 5:39 PM.
