With just a few weeks left until the 2024 General Election, an important deadline looms for Kentuckians — the Monday, Oct. 7, deadline to register to vote.
More than 3.5 million people in Kentucky registered to vote, according to September data from the State Board of Elections, and with books closing Monday, the window to ensure you are prepared for the presidential contest is dwindling.
A portion of those voters — nearly 330,000 as of Friday — are considered “inactive,” a status that will not prevent them from voting this November, but may lead to their removal from the rolls in the future if they don’t vote. That number is fluid and changing daily, the Kentucky State Board of Elections notes.
Potential removal is done as part of list maintenance, which Kentucky conducts in accordance with state law and with the federal National Voter Registration Act of 1993 , which lays out certain nondiscriminatory provisions for removing registered voters under the Voting Rights Act of 1965 .
In 2017, Kentucky was sued by conservative group Judicial Watch for violating the law after not properly maintaining the rolls for many years — a problem the SBE is still working to correct, according to Secretary of State Michael Adams, who serves as the state’s top election official.
How voters are removed from the rolls in Kentucky
Under the NVRA, a voter can be removed from the rolls if they request it; if under state law they are required to be removed because of “mental incapacity or criminal conviction”; if they die; or if they move outside their district. You cannot be removed from the rolls simply because you have not voted.
Kentucky removes voters in one of two ways: either immediately, for example in the case of death or a felony conviction, or through a slower process during which the voter first becomes inactive.
To become inactive, a voter must take action that alerts the state there might be a change to their registration, primarily a U.S. Postal Service notification that an individual has moved out of state, Adams explained in a Sept. 11 interview with the Herald-Leader. In the case of a move, the state makes two attempts via mail to contact the voter regarding registration changes, Adams said. Voters who move but remain in Kentucky are not considered inactive.
“If after two federal election cycles, which is a period of at least three years, if this individual moved away out of state and didn’t vote and didn’t send us a notification that they wanted to stay on or come off, basically they’ve just disappeared, then at that point we are allowed legally to take them off the list,” Adams said.
Elimination due to inactive status has triggered large voter roll purges in recent years as the office has worked under a consent decree from the suit settled in 2018, Adams noted. Most recently, in February 2023, SBE data shows 127,436 inactive voters were purged from the rolls.
Much of this list maintenance is done at the state level, and no inactive voters are being removed ahead of the Tuesday, Nov. 8 election. That’s because there’s a 90-day blackout provision ahead of Election Day.
“We don’t do a purge surrounding an election,” Adams said.
Voters can be removed from the rolls due to things like death or a conviction up until the registration deadline.
Earlier this summer, an advocacy group sued the state over its 2021 election reform omnibus legislation, alleging Kentucky’s list maintenance as written violates the NVRA by allowing the state to remove voters without proper notification.
“Purging Kentuckians who have registered to vote from the registration rolls in violation of the NVRA will disproportionately impact those Kentuckians most likely to move: low-wage, young, BIPOC, and other groups marginalized by systems designed to silence their voices,” Ben Carter, an attorney with the Kentucky Equal Justice Center who is representing Kentuckians for the Commonwealth in the litigation said in July of the lawsuit.
In September, Adams says his office intends to defend itself and the 2021 reform bill in court and he does not expect any ruling that would affect this November’s election.
How to check your voter registration in Kentucky
If you think you may not be correctly registered, or perhaps your voter registration is inactive due to a move, you can look it up online using the state’s voter information center , which can be found at govote.ky.gov. To look up your registration, you’ll need to enter your first and last legal name, along with your birth date.
If you find your registration is inactive and you are still a resident, you can simply vote in this fall’s election to become active again. Correspondence with the SBE would also right your status.
Through the voter information center, you can also check the status of your absentee ballot, find your assigned polling place and update your address ahead of the Oct. 7 deadline if you need to.
How to make sure you’re correctly registered to vote
If you’re new to Kentucky, newly 18 (on or by Election Day) or simply not on the voter rolls, you must be registered by 4 p.m. Oct. 7. You can register online or in person at your county office.
After Monday, the state’s rolls close and Kentuckians who aren’t registered will not be eligible to cast their ballot in the presidential or other contests.
That wide gap — the 29 days between when Kentucky rolls close and Election Day — is something Adams said he would like to see narrow in the future as the law predates modern poll books and other election technology.
“Now it’s electronic poll books. It’s instantaneous, and so I’ve tried to get that window shortened, which would No. 1 give people more time to register and No. 2 give us actually increased ability to take people off if they pass away in that window of time, but I’ve been unsuccessful at that,” Adams said.
In the meantime, you can use the voter information center to check your registration status and ensure you are registered to vote. To be eligible to vote in Kentucky, you must meet the following criteria:
- U.S. citizen
- Resident of Kentucky
- At least 18 years old on or before Election Day
- Not a convicted felon, or a felon whose rights have been restored by expungement, executive order or executive pardon
- No judged “incompetent” by a Kentucky court
- Not claim the right to vote outside of Kentucky
Do you have a question about the 2024 election in Kentucky for our service journalism team? We’d like to hear from you. Fill out our Know Your Kentucky form or email ask@herald-leader.com.
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