Secretary of State Michael Adams announced that, consistent with his campaign promise to clean up Kentucky’s voter rolls, 33,696 dead voters have been removed this year as of December 14th.
“There is no legitimate interest in dead people being registered to vote,” Adams said. “Our administration has made strides in cleaning up the voter rolls, and Kentuckians should have confidence in our election system.”
In the same period, Kentucky also removed 4,252 voters convicted of felonies, 3,435 voters who moved out of state, 586 voters who asked to de-register, and 242 voters judged mentally incompetent.
Adams’ office announced later in January that more names were removed from voter registration lists.
While 671 new voters registered, 3,089 voters were removed – 2,625 deceased voters, 287 nonresident voters, 174 voters who voluntarily de-registered, and 3 felony convicts. There are 2,418 fewer voters on the rolls as of December 31 than on November 30, a 0.07 percent decrease.
“In this year with no elections, my focus is on improving our election system for 2022,” said Secretary Adams. “While the legislature considers major reforms I’ve proposed, we won’t lose sight of our ongoing mission to clean up the voter rolls we inherited one year ago.”
According to Pendleton County County Clerk Rita Spencer locally they keep up with obituaries to remove those local citizens who are deceased from the voting rosters.
Funeral homes throughout the state file death notices with the Office of Vital Statistics who issues a death certificate.
“Over the past years, the Office of Vital Statistics and the Kentucky Board of Elections have worked diligently together to make sure the voting registration list is updated,” said Spencer.
She also indicated that state law calls for removal of a person’s name from voting roster if they have not voted in the last two Presidential general elections. They are transferred to an inactive list and would need to contact her office to update information and be returned to active status for voting.
“Democratic registrants represent 47 percent of the electorate with 1,677,174 registered voters. Democratic registration dropped by 3,400 since November 30, a 0.20 percent decrease. Republican registrants total 1,577,561, or 44 percent of voters. Republicans saw a decrease of 1,051 registered voters, a decline of 0.07 percent from November 30. In addition, 9 percent of voters are listed under other affiliations, which saw an increase of 2,033 registrants, a 0.62 percent climb.
Information from press releases from Secretary of State Michael Adams office was used for this article..
Dead can no longer vote in Kentucky
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