COVINGTON, Ky. — Kenton County election officials have a plan in place to avoid long wait times.
In last year’s general election, some voters waited in line for up to two hours to cast their ballot. Some gave up and went home.
Kenton County Clerk Gabrielle Summe said voters spent a lot of time researching candidates and issues, so it took them longer to fill out their ballot. Summe said they looked at their procedures and made some changes.
“We are really training everybody to be more proactive with whoever’s in line. Hey, please make sure you’re looking at the ballot, please be prepared before you sit down to vote,” Summe said. “We also looked at our other pinch points. Do we have enough clerks? So, we looked at our numbers coming through the door.”
She noted they’ll have 34 polling locations for this primary election. That’s 10 more than they had for the general election last year.
“I added 10 because there were places we’ve used before in the past. We looked at our numbers and said OK if we have a location that is really small let’s see if that other location that used to be a precinct in the past or a polling location is available and we’ll spread people out then you can also deal with your line issues,” she said.
Summe said they’re also pushing more people to use their express vote machines. She said anyone can use them at any polling location. Voters are given a card to insert, they fill out their ballot using a touchscreen, review their choices, and they get their card back, so they can scan it.
“It gives [voters] a lot of flexibility. Why? Because if I have that many people changing their address I now don’t have to get them back in their car, go to a different location,” Summe said.
She said hundreds of voters showed up at the wrong polling place during the last election. The machines are also ADA-compliant. Summe said each one has a set of headphones, there’s a braille option, and you can change the font size and the contrast of color.
With all the changes they’ve made, Summe doesn’t expect a large crowd. She anticipates around a 12% voter turnout.
“Gonna have a lower percentage because we do not have a non-partisan ballot. That’s a third of my registered voters in Kenton County do not have anything to vote on,” she said. “It’s because their Libertarian, Constitutionalists, Green Party, Independent, so if they’re in that category this is just one of the first times in a long time that I have not had a non-partisan ballot.”
Early voting numbers were also low.
“It was only 2%. That’s including the six days of excused voting and then the three days. In the three days, we have five locations, but we only had a 2% turnout,” Summe said.
Summe said people can call her office anytime if they have questions. She encourages voters to look at her election toolkit on her website.
