Combatting Voter Fraud

The Office has launched a number of efforts to address voter fraud in Kentucky, including: the effort to reinstate an electioneering ban near the polls so that fraud and corruption were rooted from the doorstep of democracy -- literally.  Since the passage of that legislation, additional regulations and laws have been passed to protect our elections from corruption while balancing Kentuckians' right to free speech.

The Office of the Secretary of State and the State Board of Elections regularly team up with the U.S. Attorney's Offices, Kentucky State Police, and the Kentucky Attorney General's Office to provide a unified effort to eliminate fraud and corruption from Kentucky elections.  The 2006 effort led to prompt indictments of accused vote buyers. 

The Office led the effort to prevent "pay-per-card" voter registrations in Kentucky, a fraud-ridden technique of registering voters that surfaced during the 2004 election cycle.  In addition to this legislation, the Office led the effort to pass numerous election related bills that strengthen and clarify Kentucky election law.

The State Board of Elections has also worked diligently to keep clean and accurate voter rolls.  In 2006, the State Board of Elections participated in a first-in-the-nation pilot program to verify voter registrations with other states.  Voters that were listed in multiple states' databases were purged from the state in which their voter registration was not the most current.  The National Association of Secretaries of States recently passed a resolution supporting these types of efforts.