Democratic Kentucky governor signs bipartisan election bill from GOP-controlled Legislature by Mike Brest for Washington Examiner
Democratic Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear signed an election reform bill into law on Wednesday with bipartisan support in the Republican-controlled state Legislature, expanding some voting measures.
The legislation includes provisions Democrats have advocated for, including increasing early voting, while checking off policies Republicans sought, such as cleaning the state’s voter rolls.
The bill, HB 574, passed overwhelmingly in both chambers of the state government. The state House voted 91-3, while the state Senate voted 33-3 on the bill last week before it went to Beshear’s desk, per CNN.
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“Today is also a good day for democracy, a good day for elections,” the governor said. “I want to start by talking about voting, about how when much of the country has put in more restrictive laws, that Kentucky legislators, Kentucky leaders were able to come together to stand up for democracy and to expand the opportunity for people to vote.”
Prior to the pandemic, Kentucky had some of the strictest election laws in the country, and many of the policies to be implemented as a result of this law will remain less open than those in many other states, according to the New York Times.
Before 2020, the state had no early in-person voting, and it had strict limitations on absentee ballots. Beshear and Michael Adams, the Republican secretary of state, worked together to make last year’s election cycle as safe as possible for voters given the pandemic. This legislation codifies many of those changes.
The legislation mandates each county to hold three days of early voting, including one Saturday, makes the state’s online absentee ballot request portal permanent, requires each county to use at least one drop box for absentee voting, and will allow voters to cast their ballot at any precinct in the state instead of at an assigned polling location.
