At a press conference this morning, Fayette County Clerk Don Blevins, Jr., Lexington Mayor Linda Gorton and Lexington Public Library director Heather Dieffenbach announced the six in-person voting locations where Lexington voters can cast their ballots during this year’s general election, which will take place over an expanded three-week period starting Oct. 13.
Voters wishing to vote in person can cast their ballots at the following locations:
- Lexington Public Library Beaumont Branch (3080 Fieldstone Way)
- Lexington Public Library Tates Creek Branch (328 Walden Dr.)
- Lexington Public Library Northside Branch (1733 Russell Cave Road)
- Lexington Senior Center (195 Life Lane; behind Southland Christian Church on Richmond Road)
- Dunbar Community Center (545 N. Upper St.)
- Bluegrass Community and Technical College Leestown campus (164 Opportunity Way)
Early in-person voting will take place at each of these locations during the hours of 8:30 a.m.-4 p.m. Mon.-Fri., and 9 a.m.-1 p.m. Sat., from Oct.13-Nov. 2. On election day, Nov. 3, the same polling locations will be open 6 a.m.-6 p.m. Registered Fayette County voters can vote at any location, regardless of their address or usual precinct.
Voters who are concerned about contracting or spreading COVID-19, or who will be out of town or unable to vote in person for any other reason this election cycle, also have the option of voting via absentee ballot.
Due to the limited number and limited capacity of in-person voting locations, Blevins is encouraging voters to utilize the absentee option as much as possible.
“I know a lot of people are traditional – we like to vote on election day, a lot of people just like to vote in person. And that’s okay, but we can’t all do that,” he explained. “Anyone who is comfortable voting by mail, and then returning it either via dropbox or via the mail, I wish you would do that for us. That will help us maintain the load balance the way we need it.”
Blevins explained that in that sense, Lexington is in opposition to the general state recommendations coming from the Kentucky State Board of Elections, which is pushing the in-person voting options in order to take the pressure off the mail.
“We’re the exact opposite, in the sense that we can handle the mail volume – what’s harming us is the lack of locations due to our unique circumstances in town,” Blevins said of Fayette County. “We’re really asking people to vote by mail.”
Absentee ballots must be requested by Oct. 9, and can be requested online at govoteky.com. Ballots will be mailed to voters starting in mid-September, and can be returned via mail or dropped in one of six secure dropbox locations in town. Ballot dropboxes will be located at the Tates Creek, Beaumont and Northside library, as well as at the Lexington Senior Center, in front of the Fayette County Clerk’s office downtown and at one final location which will be announced soon.
“The dropboxes we’ve purchased are heavy-gauge steel, and they will be bolted to the ground in their various locations,” Blevins said. “They are designed for this exact process and they’ve been used by many other states many times, so I’m very confident in their ability to handle the job.”
The dropboxes will be under surveillance, and Blevins hopes they will help mitigate concerns about the post office’s ability to handle the large capacity of mail-in ballots. Ballots must be received by the city no later than Nov. 6.
“Anything we can do to help the post office also helps us, and gives you the confidence that your ballot will arrive on time,” Blevins said.
According to Kentucky State Board of Elections, anyone who requested an absentee ballot but did not receive it by Oct. 28 will be allowed to vote in person, but no other permission will be given for people who requested a ballot but then decides they want to vote in person.
As of Thursday, Sept. 17, Fayette County had received about 52,000 requests to vote in mail, but Blevins expected that number to rise sharply as the city makes a concerted effort to publicize the voting options in coming weeks. For the primary election, 51,000 Fayette County voters –– 95 percent of total voters –– voted by mail. Twenty percent of those ballots were returned on election day.
For the general election, Blevins said that football season and construction eliminated the possibility of using two of the obvious large potential voting centers (Kroger Field and the Lexington Center), and the uncertainty of in-person start dates for Fayette County Schools cut out another traditional option for in-person voting. He said the city has the capacity to process about 25 percent of votes in person, or 50,000 voters, affirming the preference for absentee voting as much as possible.
Blevins said he is confident in Fayette County’s ability to handle the upcoming election, despite a recent confirmed COVID-19 case within the County Clerk’s office, which caused a temporary setback in the office’s ability to process the absentee ballots. Currently under home quarantine, the office has temporarily reconfigured so that election officers can begin processing the absentee ballots from home, a process officials started this week. Ballots are expected to be mailed out as early as Friday, Sept. 18, and Fayette Countians who requested absentee ballots will be among the first Kentuckians to receive their ballots, Blevins said, because Fayette County is one of the few places in the state that prints its own ballot labels.
The in-person voting and dropbox locations are designed to allow accessibility for all Fayette County voters.
“If you map these in your mind, you will see that there’s more or less a five-point star pattern around the edge of the city, almost at the compass points that would be appropriate, and there’s one right in the middle of the city at the Dunbar Center,” Blevins said. “We were fortunate it worked out this way, because there really weren’t any other locations I could get that are secure, ADA-accessible, with lots of parking and all the other needs we have. This is pretty much the best we could do, and we got lucky in this sense that the locations are located very strategically for our purposes.”
“This is pretty much the best we could do, and we got lucky in this sense that the locations are located very strategically for our purposes.”
For more information on Kentucky’s general election, or to request an absentee ballot, visit www.govoteky.com or fayettecountyclerk.com. The Fayette County Clerk’s office is currently unable to take phone calls until Sept. 28, when the office reopens following home quarantine.