ADAMS CALLS ON KENTUCKY DEMOCRATIC PARTY TO APOLOGIZE FOR 100 YEARS OF VOTER SUPPRESSION

Frankfort, Ky. (April 1, 2021) – Secretary of State Michael Adams called on the Kentucky Democratic Party to apologize for the failure of Democratic governors and legislators to enact reforms to expand voter access in the prior century in which they held nearly uninterrupted power.

“Kentucky Democrats did nothing in the century they controlled our government to allow even one day of early voting in our state,” Adams said. “Now the Kentucky Democratic Party has the gall to attack Georgia – another state where it was Republicans, not Democrats, who expanded voter access. The Democratic establishment should drop the hypocrisy, and thank the legislators of both parties who have joined me in bringing Kentucky voting into the 21st century.”

The Kentucky Democratic Party’s chairman has attacked Georgia’s recent election legislation as “racist & undemocratic”. https://twitter.com/colmonelridge/status/1375529985159655429 That legislation slightly modified Georgia’s expansive election rules – which were enacted by a new Republican legislature and governor in 2005 following over a century of Democratic control – and which still allow for extensive early voting days and generous absentee voting options.

The KDP chairman added, “We know the [Kentucky] GOP, aided with their counsel AG Cameron, will try their hand at this,” apparently oblivious to the fact that a Republican Secretary of State and Republican-controlled legislature have just brought Kentucky its greatest expansion of voting access since the state’s election system was designed in 1891, following more than a century of neglect by the Democratic Party.

The Democratic Party controlled the Kentucky House of Representatives without interruption from 1922 through 2016, yet it never passed a bill to extend voting by even one hour, let alone the three extra days of early in-person voting passed by the current Republican-held House.

Never in Kentucky history prior to the year 2000 did Republicans have a majority in the Kentucky Senate. Despite holding the Kentucky Senate without interruption between 1866 and 1999, Democrats never passed a bill to extend voting by even one hour, let alone the three extra days of early in-person voting passed by the current Republican-held Senate.

Democrats held the office of Kentucky Secretary of State for 97 of the 125 years that the office has been elected, rather than appointed. Never did a Democratic Secretary of State make an effort to expand voting opportunities as the current Republican Secretary of State has.

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