There's no justifiable reason to end early voting in Kentucky. SB 61 disenfranchises voters.
There is no truly justifiable reason—beyond a bid to limit free elections—to do away with early voting in Kentucky. The public servants we elected have no right to disenfranchise the very people they called upon to elect them in the first place.
Yet Senate Bill 61 will do just that: Remove Kentucky’s nationally applauded three-day early voting period in favor of one-day elections. Secretary of State Michael Adams (R) expanded early voting in 2021 but now predicts many early voters from 2023—about 20% of the total, as his office reported—will simply not show up, given the expected long lines and general mayhem or the inability to get to the polls on a workday.
He’s right.
One can’t help but wonder if that’s not the point of SB 61. Of course, no politician would dare admit that aloud. Instead, the bill's lead sponsor Sen. John Schickel (R) threw out words like “sacred” and “privilege” and “awesome responsibility.” He spoke of voting becoming too much a convenience, too casual, and thus an “afterthought” for many voters, creating a lack of civic engagement.
One does not lock the church doors every day but Sunday morning and then bemoan the lack of churchgoers. Those who attend worship services on Wednesdays or Saturdays are no less reverent and faithful than those who sit in the pews on Sunday morning. The same holds true for Kentucky voters—the day on which our ballot is cast does not diminish our pride in doing so.
No more fast-tracking legislation. Kentuckians deserve participation in the lawmaking process.
Voting rights are just that, rights
Further, one hopes our elected officials are aware that voting rights are just that, rights. They are not a casual perk so easily wiped away, like an assigned parking spot or cushy senate committee seat. The very idea that voting is a prerogative for only those sufficiently privileged rankles, sir.
This is yet another witch hunt against voting equality for the working class, and no senator’s religious verbiage changes that. Voting is “the first and most vital of all our rights … It is from the exercise of this right that all our other rights flow,” President Lyndon Johnson told Congress in 1965 while championing equal voting rights decades ago. Yet here we are again, called to stand firm on the sacred battleground of voters’ rights, demanding our voice at the polls even as a handful of politicians deem us unworthy.
Historically, single-day voting was established in Kentucky in the 1890s, when those who could vote were a select few who looked a lot less like today’s socially and economically diverse society. Very little public policy from the 1890s still functions to serve modern citizenry. One must wonder why something so important as voting should be shackled to that bygone era.
Forcing all of Kentucky to vote during one narrow window makes voting impossible for many of us, plain and simple. Senators supporting SB 61 know this and are trying to disenfranchise those they deem too casual or irreverent to deserve a vote. If we don’t remind them who holds the keys to The People’s House, then we might very soon find ourselves disenfranchised on the stoop.
Emily Sherman is a journalism instructor, high school teacher and columnist who resides in Western Kentucky.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: KY lawmakers want to get rid of early voting and stifle free elections
