Live election updates: Fayette County complaints; polls close at 6 pm local time

Two complaints involving campaign violations in Fayette County were reported to the Election Fraud Hotline this morning, according to Attorney General Russell Coleman’s office.

Another five involving legal questions were also reported from Fayette County.

No further information was immediately available on the complaints.

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Coleman declined to provide more detail on individual calls in order to protect potential investigations.

By noon, 20 calls were received on the hotline, which operates year-round. The fraud hotline numbers will be updated throughout the day.

Besides the seven calls from Fayette County, there was a call involving an absentee ballot in Barren County, calls involving an election official and a voting machine in Boone County and a call involving a party registration switch in Boyd County.

A call also was received from Clay County involving vote buying/selling, according to the Attorney General’s office.

Coleman held a news conference to tout the work of the Election Integrity Command Center in his office.

The center brings together investigators and prosecutors from the Attorney General’s Office with the FBI and Kentucky State Police to guard against election fraud.

The office keeps close contact with the Kentucky Secretary of State, the Board of Elections and county clerks, Coleman said.

“You have everyone in government rowing together to protect the integrity of the ballot,” Coleman said during the news conference.

Kentucky has had an unfortunate history of election fraud, including vote buying, Coleman said.

He noted that a call to the election hotline about suspected vote fraud in Monroe County in the 2022 primary resulted in an investigation and ultimately seven convictions.

Polls close in less than an hour

5:15 p.m. — Polls across Kentucky are scheduled to close at 6 p.m. local time, meaning polls in the far western part of the state will close an hour later than those on Eastern Standard Time. All voters in line by 6 p.m. will be able to cast their ballot.

In addition, secure county dropboxes for mail-in ballots will also close at 6 p.m.

Fayette County voters are able to cast a ballot at 135 polling locations or at all six Lexington Public Library locations. You can also visit govote.ky.gov to research your voter registration and polling place.

Kentucky’s longest-serving member of Congress ever, Hal Rogers votes

U.S. Rep. Hal Rogers, 86, voted Tuesday morning at a fire training center named for him.

Rogers, a Republican, who was first elected to office in 1980, is seeking a 23rd term in the U.S. House of Representatives. He is the longest-serving member of Congress ever from Kentucky and in 2022 became Dean of the House, meaning he has more tenure than any other member.

Rogers said he is seeking another term because there is more work to be done for his district and the country.

Rogers said the district he represents in Southern and Eastern Kentucky continues to deal with substance abuse, health disparity and a need for more jobs.

“We’ve got problems. The country needs some direction,” Rogers said.

Issues with campaign signs?

The Herald-Leader received an allegation that poll workers had been asked to remove candidate signs that were too close to a polling place.

Meredit Watson, spokeswoman for Fayette County Clerk Susan Lamb, said the clerk’s office had not received any reports related to signs.

A poll worker at Central Baptist Church on Wilson Downing, which serves as the polling place for three Fayette County precincts, declined to comment on the report that signs for a District 4 city council candidate and House District 93 candidate were removed from public rights of way.

There were no campaign signs near the polls by 9 a.m., according to a Herald-Leader reporter.

Early turnout in Lexington

Early voting in Lexington is running smoothly as voters trickle in.

A spokeswoman for Lamb said that by 8 a.m. more than 3,000 people had already voted on Primary Day. According to the Kentucky Board of Elections, there are 243,196 voters registered in Fayette County.

The polls opened at 6 a.m. and there were minor “hiccups” at some locations but techs were dispatched across town and no problems were reported as of 8 a.m., according to Watson, spokeswoman for Lamb.

Lamb said that early voting in-person voting on Thursday, Friday and Saturday was up “significantly” over last year. She did not give a specific number.

Last year, primary turnout was 15%, Lamb said, and she hopes to exceed that this year.

What Lexington poll workers were seeing

Michael Krause, a volunteer at the Lexington Public Library’s Eastside Branch, said Tuesday morning’s turnout had been slower than anticipated because voters aren’t used to having a “centralized voting area compared to precincts.”

“Most people can just go to their local precincts and vote, but all the libraries are open … We can do all precincts,” Krause said.

John Lazzari, a first-year volunteer at Marksbury Family Public Library, said “the people that have come have been very eager participants.”

Lazarri said he decided to be a volunteer because voting is so important to him. He’s not missed an election since he became an 18-year-old registered voter.

“I knew I was going to retire soon, and I wanted to do something where I could give back to the community,” he said.

Paul Louallen, a poll liaison at the Lexington Public Library Central Branch, said opening poll locations at public libraries this year has increased voters’ abilities to get to the polls on Primary Day.

“Everybody knows where the library is,” he said. “We have six libraries here that are accessible for voters. I think it was well worth the effort ... to open up the libraries for us.”

Louallen said the Central Branch location saw about 350 voters during early voting while about a dozen had been to the library early Tuesday morning.

Lazarri encouraged voters who have yet to cast ballots to find a polling spot before they close at 6 p.m.

“I think it’s important that everybody has a say in what goes on in their country or even locally,” he said. “So you really don’t have a complaint if you don’t vote or exercise that right that we’ve got.”

How to report a complaint about voting

If you see issues related to voting, you can report them to the attorney general’s election fraud hotline at 800-328-VOTE.

“Election integrity is foundational to our constitutional system, and we take our responsibility to protect the security of every Kentuckians’ vote seriously,” Coleman said in a news release. “I’m proud of our dedicated team who is working around the clock so every voter can be confident in the result.”

35 calls to fraud hotline before Primary Day

Three days of early voting were held May 16 to 18 and the attorney general’s hotline received 35 pre-election calls before Primary Day. Many calls were legal or procedural questions, but calls related to “electioneering” were reported in Fayette County and in Elliott County.

Electioneering, which is prohibited, can include signs or campaigning too close to the poll.

Six calls were received from Estill County, including three relating to campaign violations, one relating to vote buying/selling, one relating to voter assistance and one relating to campaign finance law.

Estill County Clerk Kim Charles said on Monday she had not received any election-related complaints in her office and seemed surprised there had been a number of complaints to the Attorney General’s hotline.

“I don’t know what that means,” she said of the complaints.

Estill County is part of House District 91, where there is a race in the Republican primacy between incumbent Rep. Bill Wesley of Ravenna and challenger Darrell Billings of Stanton.

Charles, who has worked in the clerk’s office 21 years but was only appointed to the top job on April 2, said some of the complaints may have arisen from that race, though she said she didn’t know for sure.

Who can vote today, what’s on the ballot

It’s Primary Day in Kentucky, which means Democrat and Republican voters have a chance to select candidates that will appear on the ballot for the General Election in November.

Voters who are registered as Independents may not vote in party primaries under Kentucky law, only in nonpartisan races.

With no statewide elections on the ballot, voters will be picking local government, judicial and legislative party candidates.

Democrats and Republicans also can vote in the presidential primaries for the parties, although President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump have already been named as nominees.

What hours are Kentucky polls open and where?

Polls are open from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. local time; if you are in line at 6 p.m. you will be allowed to vote.

To find your polling place, registered voters can go to govote.ky.gov.

In addition to all regular Fayette County precinct voting locations, the six voting centers in the public libraries set up for early voting are remaining open on Primary Day. Any registered Lexington voter can use the voting centers.

If you are voting by absentee ballot, you have until 6 p.m. local time to put it in drop boxes in your county.

Prediction for voter turnout

With no statewide races to draw out voters, turnout is expected to be low.

“We expect a light turnout .... I think the primaries are increasingly important,” said Secretary of State Michael Adams last week when early voting started. “As the state gets more polarized geographically, with Louisville and Lexington becoming more blue and rural areas become more red, increasingly the primary is the general election. If you have 10-15% turnout, those people are picking our leaders because you have a lot of uncontested elections in November.”

Adams said in 2022 the primary had 13% turnout with a Senate primary, last year the primary turnout was 14.5% with a gubernatorial race, “this year we’re thinking it’s going to be in that range. ... I’m frustrated that the turnout’s not higher.”

Monday, Adams announced 75,204 Kentuckians had participated in the three days of no-excuse early voting, up from 72,754 in last year.

This story will be updated. Herald-Leader reporters Alexis Baker, Ali Costellow, Daniel Kehn and Maggie Phelps contributed to this report.

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