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.
CIVIL RIGHTS GROUPS SUE GEORGIA OVER NEW ELECTION REFORM BILL
“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.
“Last year, Governor Beshear and I worked across party lines to accommodate our election process to the pandemic, and we had the most secure and successful election we’ve ever seen,” Adams said in a statement. “This year, the General Assembly has followed suit, working across party lines to enact the most significant reform of our election system since 1891. This is a triumph of both policy and process.”
The state will still not allow non-excused absentee voting. Critics of the bill note that Kentucky will still have less early voting than most other states across the country.
Kentucky provides a unique example of election reform, given the bill’s bipartisan support and the fact that neither party has control of the executive nor legislative branches of the state government.
Nationally, both parties are pushing to change the way elections are run, albeit in different ways.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER
Republicans often promote ideas such as strengthening voter identification laws and limiting absentee voting, which they claim will increase voter confidence and decrease fraud. Democrats tend to criticize reforms favored by Republicans as efforts designed to disenfranchise voters, specifically minorities. From a legislative perspective, Democrats typically set their focus on limiting voter identification laws, automatic voter registration, and increasing early voting.
Several states have passed election reform bills since the 2020 election, though they lack the bipartisan spirit of the legislation passed in Kentucky. These states include Iowa, Texas, Georgia, where Republicans are the party in control, and New Jersey, where Democrats have the power.
On the federal level, the House passed the For The People Act on March 3. But the bill is unlikely to pass in the evenly split Senate unless the chamber does away with the filibuster.
