Darron Cummings/AP Photo
Spencer Crabtree, left, receives instructions from David Lee Mitchell before Crabtree marks his ballot at the Kentucky Exposition Center, on Election Day, November 3, 2020, in Louisville, Kentucky.
The onslaught of voter suppression bills introduced by Republicans in state legislatures around the country has evoked intense opposition from the whole non-MAGA world. Protests have erupted, and lawsuits have been filed, often within minutes of passage, against these new restrictions.
Watching this, it is tempting to completely write off the possibility of any bipartisan work on voting and democracy issues. The savaging of Liz Cheney in the Republican conference produces that same feeling. But just as there are rumblings of Republican resistance to the Trumpist takeover, there are also Republicans in the elections realm willing to move democracy forward. So it is worth noting where bipartisan progress is actually being made.
One such place, surprisingly, is Kentucky, home of Sens. Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul. Democratic Gov. Andrew Beshear recently signed into law a voting expansion bill that passed the House, 91-3, and the Senate, 33-3. In signing, Beshear 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.”
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What’s the story behind this anomalous event, and what lessons does it suggest going forward?
Kentucky was one of the many states that moved to make access to voting easier in 2020, to protect citizens from the risk of voting in person. And they needed to. Prior to the pandemic, Kentucky had one of the most restrictive voting laws anywhere. There was no early voting, and access to absentee ballots was highly restricted. In 2018, 96 percent of Kentucky’s voters voted in person on Election Day, and that clearly was not going to work in 2020.
The legislature empowered Democrat Beshear and Republican Secretary of State Michael Adams to develop temporary emergency procedures. They did, and the procedures (as in so many states) worked, producing dramatically increased turnout, with voters utilizing the multiple new opportunities they had to cast their ballots. Only 22 percent of voters cast their ballots in person on Election Day in November 2020.
Kentucky was one of the many states that moved to make access to voting easier in 2020, to protect citizens from the risk of voting in person.
Voters were glad to have the additional options, and local elections officials and county clerks were happy and relieved as well. Around the country, given how well the 2020 election actually worked—the most secure, with the highest turnout in decades—it has been astonishing and appalling to watch so many states race to the bottom in voting laws.
But in Kentucky, Republicans decided to do something different; they decided to try to keep moving forward in a bipartisan way. The leaders in the Republican House and Republican Senate reached out to Democrats, who were in a 25 percent minority, for input and discussion. State Rep. Jennifer Decker, a lead sponsor of the bill, made the point that election reform should not be partisan; majorities can change at any time, as they have in Kentucky’s recent past.
Decker, along with Josh Branscum, both first-termers in the legislature, and Rep. James Tipton, worked to come up with a bill that could actually be passed in the House and the Senate with the goals of increasing turnout and making elections more secure. Rep. Buddy Wheatley, chair of the House Elections Committee, pointed out in an interview with the authors that Adams, Beshear, and Republican and Democratic legislators were able to build on the cooperation they achieved working together during the pandemic.
Another key player in all of this was Jared Dearing, executive director of the Kentucky State Board of Elections. Dearing had put together a diverse and respected advisory group during 2020 in an effort to get the broadest buy-in possible for elections changes needed during the pandemic. Essentially this same group was reassembled in 2021 to advise on what changes should be made permanent.
They also reached out to experts like Josh Douglas, professor of law at the University of Kentucky, a national leader in efforts to expand voting opportunities. The deep expertise and experience in this group was invaluable in providing the legislators with critical data and input. Part of the story was the strong involvement of the county clerks, who brought their “on-the-ground” perspectives. Douglas told us that not only did Adams and the legislative leaders reach out to the county clerks; they actually listened to them, unlike the Florida legislature, which recently passed a voter suppression law, ignoring the opposition voices of the county clerks.
Given how well the 2020 election actually worked, it has been astonishing and appalling to watch so many states race to the bottom in voting laws.
This deep involvement of the clerks and local elections officials reveals one element of the secret sauce here, and that was the involvement of Trey Grayson, who represents the county clerks in the legislature as their lobbyist. Grayson, political history buffs may recall, was secretary of state of Kentucky from 2004 to 2011, and was Mitch McConnell’s strong choice to join him in the U.S. Senate in 2010. But he was primaried by one Rand Paul, who defeated him handily in the Tea Party wave. Grayson did a stint as the director of the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School, and has continued his leadership on election issues both in Kentucky and nationally. He was a key figure in the negotiations on the bill.
In an interview, he recalled the aha moment when a working group of Republican legislators, election administrators representing the secretary, the county clerks, and the Republican representative from the State Elections Board all found consensus on critical key points. These included voting centers, early voting, and a cure process for absentee ballots, all of which the county clerks had prioritized based on their experience in 2020.
Grayson pointed out that the Democrats contributed positively to this outcome as well. They could have publicly opposed the bill for not going far enough, which they certainly believed. But instead, they were pragmatic and recognized that getting the changes the Republicans were proposing would definitely be a significant improvement over the current law. They became “team players,” and the bill ultimately passed by the huge margins we noted.
Some voting rights advocates have criticized the Kentucky law for not being strong enough, for not addressing some key issues to enhance voter access, and for including restrictions that they would oppose, including the prohibition of third-party collection of absentee ballots and some easing of purging procedures. They point out that in some respects, like the provision of only three days of early voting, the new Kentucky law leaves the state with a more restrictive set of rules than those just enacted in Georgia. But most voting rights organizations in Kentucky, including the NAACP and the ACLU, have given the new law cautious support.
Specifically, the new law:
- Provides three days of no-excuse early in-person voting, including the Saturday before Election Day (early voting did not exist in Kentucky pre-pandemic).
- Allows counties to establish voting centers where registered voters in the county can vote regardless of their precinct.
- Maintains an online portal for voters to request a mail-in ballot, though it leaves in place pre-pandemic restrictions on who can vote by mail.
- Mandates a statewide transition to universal paper ballots.
- Enhances ability of elections officials to remove nonresidents from voter rolls.
- Expressly prohibits and penalizes “ballot harvesting” (third-party collection).
- Allows voters to fix problems with absentee ballots (curing).
- Provides for risk-limiting audits.
Kentucky is truly unique in making even this modest progress. It is the only GOP-controlled legislature in the country that worked with the minority Democrats to craft an improvement in voter access over the state’s existing law, which was admittedly one of the worst in the nation. While the parties are far apart on many issues, Wheatley says the key to compromise is building lasting trusting relationships with each other. And Dearing emphasizes that by making incremental steps, the changes will be more sustainable and less susceptible to extreme pendulum swings in the future.
But why is Kentucky so different from the norm?
It is important to note that Kentucky is by no means a swing state or a national battleground. Republicans had major successes in the November 2020 election, re-electing Mitch McConnell, delivering a strong win for Trump, and adding to Republican majorities in the state legislature. Republican voters as well as Democrats had enjoyed the broader options for voting, and there was no strong grassroots movement to curtail those improvements. The continuing Republican domination surely lessened the pressure from Trump and the national party to make big changes.
And the fact that there is a Democratic governor has made some levels of cooperation more the norm on many issues, and the cooperation in the 2020 elections was a highly relevant case in point. In addition (though this is true elsewhere), Republican voters as well as Democrats utilized the widened procedures, and were glad to have them in the pandemic. Finally, the bill had some elements of the Republican agenda of election security, such as the restriction on third parties being able to collect and turn in absentee ballots. So it was indeed a compromise piece of legislation.
Nevertheless, there is something to be noted here about leadership and even about the Republican Party. Underneath the MAGA madness, there are Republicans, like Michael Adams, Trey Grayson, and some of the Republican legislators who made this happen, who can be partners in legislating and in improving democratic procedures. At the moment, they are faint voices compared to the Trumpian noise machine. But they are there. Some Republican secretaries of state have done good work to broaden voting regulations. Many local elections officials, well beyond the few heroes who stood up to the Big Lie, are working to make elections run well. They should be recognized, and opportunities for those partnerships shouldn’t be missed.
