By RONNIE ELLIS
CNHI News Service
FRANKFORT
May 08, 2008 03:11 pm
—
Attorney General Jack Conway expects the eyes of the country now to focus on Kentucky in the presidential nomination battle between Democrats Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. At least if that race is still a race come May 20, the date of Kentucky’s primary.
“On May 20, the eyes of the nation, and indeed the world, will be on Kentucky,” Conway said Wednesday. “We’re going to run a fair, open and model election.”
Conway, a Democrat, and Republican Secretary of State Trey Grayson appeared together at a press conference to announce a Voter Fraud Hotline which will operate from 6 a.m. EDT to 7 p.m. EDT on May 20 to take calls from anyone who thinks he may have witnessed voter fraud.
The number is (800) 328-VOTE or 8683. Conway said his office will refer any complaint to the appropriate agency. Conway’s office will also have officers in the field on election day looking for evidence of voter fraud.
And with federal offices on the ballot this year, the appropriate agency could be a federal agency. Tom Dyche and Ken Taylor, both with the U.S. District Attorney’s office for the eastern district of Kentucky, were also at the press conference.
Taylor said one of the office’s priorities is voter fraud and their office has prosecuted a number of such cases in eastern Kentucky, including prosecutions in Bath County, Pike County and Knott County. There is also an investigation under way in Clay County, he said, concerning allegations that precinct workers tampered with electronic voting machines.
“If you have corrupt precinct workers, you’ve got a problem,” Taylor said.
“We do have jurisdiction this year because there are federal races on the ballot,” Taylor said. He said most voter fraud cases involve local elections, “but corruption in local races tends to skew federal races on the ballot.”
Many of those cases involve illegal vote hauling – paying people to transport voters to the polls. Grayson said the state must do more to prohibit or prosecute illegal vote hauling but he doesn’t want to outlaw it altogether because getting out the vote is a legitimate campaign practice.
Grayson warned of another potential problem for some voters – those who changed registration after Jan. 1 in order to vote in the primary of their choice are ineligible to vote in the primary. Kentucky law does not allow voters to switch parties prior to a primary after Dec. 31 and be eligible to vote in that primary. They are still eligible to vote in the general election and in future primaries. The law’s intent is to prevent members of a party from deliberately trying to disrupt the other party’s selection of a candidate.
He said 14,349 voters in Kentucky had changed registration since Jan. 1 and his office is sending letters to all of them to avoid confusion on May 20. He didn’t have party data on hand Wednesday, but said he assumed the majority of those are people who registered to vote in the hotly contested Democratic primary between Obama and Clinton.
Grayson conceded that if Clinton, following a disappointing loss in North Carolina on Tuesday and a closer-than-expected win in Indiana, drops out of the race, national attention on Kentucky will likely subside. Much of the political commentary following Tuesday’s elections in Indiana and North Carolina indicated Clinton’s path to the nomination shrunk even more and Obama is almost certain to be the nominee. Some speculated Clinton, her campaign in debt and strapped for cash, may leave the race before May 20.
But there are local and state legislative races still on the May 20 ballot regardless of what happens in the race for president.
Ronnie Ellis writes for CNHI News Service and is based in Frankfort. Reach him at rellis@cnhi.com.
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