If Early Voting Would Help You Vote, You're Out of Luck in Kentucky

In 32 states, early voting is helping Democratic activists prevail against both low turnout and republican attempts to prevent minorities from voting at all.

In those 32 states, people who have to work on election day, or who have trouble arranging transportation to the polls on election day, or who are the target of voter supression tactics, have two weeks or more before election day to cast their vote when it is both convenient and safe.

But not in Kentucky.

Kentucky is one of only 8 states that do not permit early voting for anyone who is not physically unable to vote on election day. Having to work for a living doesn't count. Needing help to get to the polls doesn't count. Needing support to assert your voting rights doesn't count.

From the Kentucky Board of Elections:

Q: What if I am unable to get to the polls on election day?

A: You may request an absentee ballot application from your county clerk's office in person, by mail, by phone, or by fax. The deadline for applying for a mailed absentee ballot is seven days before an election. You must fulfill one of these qualifications in order to request a mailed absentee ballot:

• Due to advanced age, disability, illness or medical emergency
• You are a member of the armed forces or the dependent of a member of the armed forces
• You are military personnel confined to a military base on election day
• You temporarily reside overseas but are still eligible to vote in Kentucky
• You are a student attending school outside the county of your voter registration
• You temporarily live outside the state but are still eligible to vote in Kentucky
• You are incarcerated in jail and have been charged but not convicted of a felony
• You work outside the county and are unable to either vote on the absentee voting machine in the county clerk's office or in your polling place on election day

A voting machine at the County Clerk's office is available during the last 12 (or more) working days before the election for certain qualified voters. If you do not qualify for a paper absentee ballot and meet one of the following conditions, you may vote an absentee ballot on a voting machine in the County Clerk's office.

• You will be out of the county on election day
• You are a pregnant woman in your third trimester
• You are a member or an employee of the county board of elections, deputy clerk, alternate precinct officer or appointed to a precinct other than that in which you are registered
• You are a member of the armed forces who will be confined to base within the county on election day and learn of that confinement within 7 days or less of the election
• You are a student attending school outside the county of your voter registration who will be absent from the county on election day
• You or your spouse who has surgery scheduled that will require hospitalization on election day

If you have a medical emergency, you or your spouse may apply for a medical emergency absentee ballot within 14 days or less of an election.

Believe me, those rules are interpreted as strictly as possible. A few years ago I tried to get an absentee ballot for a relative who had been hospitalized for emergency surgery. It was one week before election day. I was told - in the most disapproving tones imaginable - by the County Clerk that it was my fault I had been so irresponsible as to not anticipate a week in advance that my relative would require emergency hospitalization and that such irresponsible persons certainly deserved no exception from the rules.

Kentucky also requires an official photo identification in order to vote - something many urban-dwelling minorities, who don't need driver's licenses, don't have.

The fact is that in Kentucky, if you are not white and at least middle-class if not wealthy - or have a job that gives you time off to vote - you don't have the right to vote.

Call or email your legislators and tell them you want easy, convenient early voting for Kentucky.