Live updates: Lexington voters wait hours after polls close; KY complaints increase
Some voters had to wait to cast their ballots long after Kentucky polls closed at 6 p.m.
The line at the Tates Creek Branch of the Lexington Public Library had about 185 people in it as of 6 p.m., and the last person finished voting just before 8 p.m. . A traffic cone was placed at the end of the line at 6 p.m. and no one else was allowed to get in line.
One of the very last to cast their vote in Fayette County was Ismail Abdus-Salam, who stood for two hours in line to vote after eight hours on his feet at work. He said he waited because it’s his civic duty, and because it’s time for a change. The fellow voters, as well as poll workers and volunteers who provided food and encouragement, made the wait enjoyable, he said.
Paul Tillier, an election official working at the Tates Creek polls, said the process moved smoothly, but that this election was a “whole new ballgame.”
As of 5:56 p.m., about 9,300 people had voted at the polls in Fayette County on Tuesday, deputy clerk Meredith Watson said. A few signs were removed near a polling location early in the day by sheriff’s deputies, but other than that, no issues had been reported at any of the Lexington polling locations.
All absentee ballots dropped off on Tuesday were set to be picked up when polling locations closed, Watson said. Before Election Day, about 92 percent of requested absentee ballots in Fayette County had been returned and about 7,000 were still outstanding. The percentage returned before Election Day was about the same as it was for the total returned during the primary, and the clerk’s office did not expect a large number to be returned Tuesday.
Fayette County Clerk Don Blevins said Monday that voter rolls were bloated with outdated registrations, and he was “flying blind from a numbers point of view.”
As of just before 6 p.m., 414,902 people had voted on Election Day in Kentucky, according to Miranda Combs, spokeswoman for the Kentucky Secretary of State. At least 1,615,000 Kentuckians voted early.
Kentucky election law complaints surpass 350
More than 350 legal complaints regarding the 2020 election were called in by 7 p.m. Tuesday, according to the state attorney general’s office. There were 250 called in prior to Election Day and 111 called in on Election Day, according to the attorney general’s office. But 78 of those 361 total calls were from out-of-state or were not from a specific county.
The complaints included accusations of electioneering, voter fraud, vote buying and people voting more than once. They also included calls about procedural questions, elections officials and residency, among other concerns.
Calls from Lexington included concerns about election fraud, procedural questions, absentee ballots, electioneering and residency, according to the attorney general’s website. There were 35 calls in total from Fayette County – 26 before Election Day and nine on Election Day.
Kentucky residents who witness election irregularities or possible election law violations are encouraged to call 800-328-8683
Low turnout for early, absentee voting in Eastern Kentucky
There were concerns that Eastern Kentucky counties would have long lines on Election Day after relatively few voters in the region voted early or by absentee ballot, according to the secretary of state’s office.
“They had the least utilization of early voting and absentee,” Secretary of State Michael Adams said Tuesday. He said he was going to make calls to counties in the region to see how their polling places were doing.
Breathitt County had wait times of 10-to-15 minutes, which was about twice as long as a usual Election Day, according to the county clerk’s office.
But several other Eastern Kentucky county officials said lines weren’t too long as of Tuesday afternoon. The Martin County clerk’s office hadn’t received any complaints of long wait times. Pulaski County voters were getting through the polls quickly as well, according to the county clerk’s office.
Turnout in Johnson County had been high all day, County Clerk Sallee Holbrook said Tuesday afternoon, but the lines hadn’t gotten out of control.
“We’ve had a pretty good turnout, but I suspect we’ll close on time at 6 o’clock,” she said.
As of Tuesday afternoon, there weren’t any major issues in Eastern Kentucky for Election Day voting, according to the Kentucky Secretary of State’s office.
Voting among Kentucky college students
This election has differed from prior elections in many ways, and for Kentucky’s college students have also felt the change.
For students and young people, COVID-19 hasn’t only changed when and where they area able to vote, but also how they are able to engage in volunteering for their preferred candidate and party.
While the contentious election has driven up political interest in some young people, the pandemic has made many of the usual canvassing and recruiting methods impossible, students told the Herald-Leader.
Lexington lines have stayed ‘manageable,’ KY official says
Secretary of State Michael Adams repeatedly showed concern about the potential for long lines at polling places leading up to Election Day, as he said Fayette County didn’t have enough polling places open. He visited two polling places in the county Tuesday morning and said he was pleased that lines were “kept manageable.”
“I would have liked more locations, and I won’t be shy about that,” Adams said. “But I think we’ve done the best we can with the eight that we have.”
Adams encouraged voters to go to other polling places if they wanted to avoid the lines at Tates Creek Library. The line was more than 150 people long when the polls opened at 6 a.m., and it was still roughly 100 people lone later in the morning. Some voters at Tates Creek said they waited an hour or longer to vote later in the morning.
Fayette County polling locations
No major issues had been reported at Lexington voting by the afternoon.
As 6 p.m. drew nearer, lines grew at at least some polling places.
The line at the Tates Creek branch of the Lexington Public Library stretched across the sidewalk in front of the building and down the street just before 6 p.m., and one couple exiting at about 5:30 p.m. said they had waited an hour and a half to vote.
At the Northside Branch Library voting location around 3:30.p.m., there was a line and about a 15 minute wait, according to voters. As of about 5:30 p.m., the parking lot was reportedly full.
When the polls opened at 6 a.m., the line at the Tates Creek library branch had about 150 people in it. The line stayed long throughout the morning, as multiple voters who cast their ballot around 10 a.m. said they had to wait an hour or more. The crowd at the Lexington Senior Center was notably shorter but got longer as the sun came up.
At the Dunbar Community Center only 15 people people were in line at 6 a.m., according to a poll worker, and there was no line for much of the morning.
Charles Haines said he waited until today to vote because he didn’t have time to go during early voting. He expected it to take a lot longer than it did at the Dunbar Center.
“I thought it would be full,” Haines said. “I was in and out in five minutes.”
As the line at the Lexington Senior Center got a little longer, one voter said he’d wait as long as it took to cast his ballot.
“I don’t care if people vote early, if it’s what you want to do,” Derek Gregory said. “But it’s Election Day. It’s not election week, it’s not election month, it’s not election year.”
As of about 9 a.m., there was no line to vote at the BCTC location on Leestown Road.
Suzanne Leibee, who’s managing the BCTC polling place, said the line at 6 a.m. was knocked out in about 25 minutes. She said early voting has made this election easy.
“I love the early voting. It’s been great,” Leibee said. “Especially on Saturdays, people love the voting on Saturdays.”
There were about 30 in line at the Beaumont Library, but one voter, Kevin Tucker, said he’d waited about ten minutes and that the line was moving quicker than it had last time he’d voted there.
“Whatever they’re doing in there, they’re doing it efficiently,” Tucker said.
Changes to Kentucky’s election processes, brought on by COVID-19, allowed Lexington to surpass its 2016 voter turnout before Election Day, according to the secretary of state’s office. Between absentee ballots and early voting, voter turnout in Fayette County was already over 50 percent before Monday, according to Blevins.
Blevins previously and repetitively urged people to vote absentee or early so that Election Day lines wouldn’t get too long. Lexington was “poised” to surpass 50,000 early in-person votes as of Monday, he said, and that gave him “some comfort that maybe we’ll be OK.”
“It may have been sufficient,” he said. “It’s just really, really difficult to say.”
Adams repeatedly showed concern over Fayette County’s limited voting precincts. Lexington was expected to have six polling places open for early voting, but Blevins added two more after Adams voiced his concern.
Where to vote in Lexington
Lexington voters are able to vote at any of the eight polling places in Fayette County. The sites are at Bluegrass Community and Technical College at Leestown, the Lexington Senior Center, the Dunbar Center, Wellington Elementary School, Garrett Morgan Elementary School and the Northside, Tates Creek and Beaumont branches of the Lexington Public Library.
Each polling place is open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Election Day.
Check out our voter guide for Lexington KY races
The Lexington Herald-Leader’s Voter Guide allows readers to find races and candidates that will appear on their ballot. The interactive tool can help voters select and keep track of picks when it’s time to vote.
Subscribers can access candidates’ answers to questions about important community issues. There’s also additional election coverage, endorsements and more.
This story was originally published November 3, 2020 at 7:29 AM.