Although it seems the General Election is barely in the rear-view mirror, another voter deadline is approaching. Kentuckians who want to, only have until the end of the month to change their party affiliation before next year’s primary election.
Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams said it may seem like an odd time for such a deadline, but it was done with purpose.
“The reason that it’s written this way is to prevent gamesmanship, to prevent people from dive bombing into another party to try to sabotage a nominee or a candidate to become a nominee of the party. The design here is to only have democrats voting in the democratic primary and republicans in the republican primary,” said Adams.
Adams said he would like to see this deadline removed, so that everyone who wants to vote has the same deadline to register before the primary.
“Because people can circumvent this law if they really feel that strongly about it. They can de-register, then re-register as a new voter. It’s not prohibited. It’s certainly not consistent with the intent of the legislature for people to do that. If they’re really that motivated, I guess they can. We don’t really see much evidence of people actually doing that,” said Adams.
Secretary Adams said this deadline is easily overlooked because most people aren’t thinking about voting at this time of year.
More information about registering to vote, changing party affiliation and finding other voter services can be found at govoteky.gov.
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