Dear Friend,

Tomorrow, voters in Kentucky’s largest county will go to the polls for the primary to select the Democratic candidate to run against Mitch McConnell.

There will be just a single polling place open in the entire county to accommodate them.¹

This is set up to be the worst voting disaster of the 2020 primaries, blocking tens of thousands of people from being able to complete their ballots. And if Republicans get away with it, they will go even further to suppress the vote in November.

We're running out of time to pass vote by mail, and if we don’t, November’s election could be undermined. Will you donate to Demand Progress’ emergency campaign to pass vote-by-mail legislation?

Tomorrow is an incredibly important primary. Not only are the Democrats deciding who will take on McConnell in November, but McConnell has more than a dozen Republican challengers.² These factors should cause high turnout. But it’s likely that many residents won’t be able to cast their votes.

Kentucky typically has 3,700 polling places. Tomorrow, they will only have 200. Jefferson County, home to Louisville and half of Kentucky's Black residents, only has one polling place for more than 600,000 registered voters.

Concerned about the lack of polling places, voting rights experts begged Kentucky to do something about it, but the state failed. The secretary of state urged residents to vote by mail, and nearly one million people requested ballots—but now the Board of Elections is reporting that the wrong ballot was sent out in many cases.³

Meanwhile, a close race between Amy McGrath and Charlie Booker for the Democratic Senate nomination is drawing people to the polls—and one county clerk says he is expecting “an angry mob,” with hours-long lines in the Kentucky summer heat.⁴

Voter suppression is rampant now that the coronavirus can be used as an excuse. In just the last three months, here’s what we’ve seen:

• A last-minute Supreme Court decision that stopped Wisconsin from counting hundreds of thousands of absentee ballots after opening a fraction of its polling places due to the coronavirus.⁵
• Broken voting machines, hours-long lines, and lost absentee ballots in Georgia.⁶
• 80,000 voter registrations lost due to a computer “glitch” in Maryland.⁷
• A right-wing group in Pennsylvania fighting to purge 800,000 voters before November.⁸

And all of these suppression efforts disproportionately affect people of color and impoverished communities.⁹

Our country needs a nationwide, well-funded, equal opportunity vote-by-mail process. If Congress doesn’t act now, five states won’t let voters request absentee ballots to avoid the coronavirus even if the virus is the reason for fewer polling places, and even more states will see a repeat of Georgia and Wisconsin.

There’s no way around it: Without nationwide vote-by-mail, we cannot rely on the fairness of our election process this November.

Demand Progress has organized more than 100,000 people to demand that Congress pass emergency vote-by-mail legislation. Will you rush a donation today to help ensure a fair election in November?

For our democracy,

Robert Cruickshank,
Demand Progress

 

Sources:
1. The Washington Post, "Kentucky braces for possible voting problems in Tuesday’s primary amid signs of high turnout," June 19, 2020
2. Courier Journal, "Kentucky field different for Mitch McConnell and Democrats in 2020 Senate race," January 10, 2020
3. The Washington Post, "Kentucky braces for possible voting problems in Tuesday’s primary amid signs of high turnout," June 19, 2020
4. The Independent, "‘It’s going to be an angry mob’: Kentucky cuts number of polling stations by 95 percent ahead of primary voting," June 22, 2020
5. PBS, "‘Voter Suppression At Its Finest’: Wisconsin Citizens Say Missing Ballots, Lines and Coronavirus Kept Them from Being Counted in Election," April 13, 2020
6. The Nation, "Georgia Shows How Serious the Threat of Voter Suppression Will Be This November," June 10, 2020
7. The Baltimore Sun, "Maryland voter registration snafu affects 80,000, four times as many as initially announced," June 25, 2020
8. The Intercept, "Right-wing group seeks to purge up to 800,000 voters in Pennsylvania, a key battleground state," May 28, 2020
9. Time, "Voter Suppression Is Still One of the Greatest Obstacles to a More Just America," June 12, 2020

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