Grimes Continues Historic Registration Drive
ELIZABETHTOWN, Ky. (Oct. 5, 2016) – The deadline to register to vote in the Nov. 8 general election is less than one week away, Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes reminded Kentuckians today. She is continuing her historic voter registration effort and made a stop at Elizabethtown Community & Technical College to encourage citizens to get registered and vote next month.
“I am counting on Kentuckians to do their duty and vote on Nov. 8,” Grimes told a large crowd of students, community members, and public officials. “But you have to be registered. With GoVoteKY.com we are helping to give a voice to even more Kentuckians at the ballot box. With your help, we’ve surpassed our goal with more than 60,000 Kentuckians registering or update their registration online. Let’s make that number even bigger before the Oct. 11 deadline.”
The attendees included students, faculty, community members and leaders. Several in the large, standing room only crowd registered for the first time. Grimes led a discussion on the future of Kentucky elections, benefits of online voter registration in cost savings and improvements in accuracy of voter rolls, and her proposal for early voting in Kentucky.
“Voting is a right that we hope Kentuckians will exercise on Nov. 8, especially our students and the voters of Elizabethtown,” said Dr. Gwen Joseph, interim President of Elizabethtown Community & Technical College (ECTC). “Many men and women have dedicated and given their lives to defending that right, and we should honor them by going to the polls on Election Day. ECTC was excited and honored to be part of Secretary Grimes’ GoVoteKY tour and we are committed to helping turn out the vote.”
Grimes asked attendees to help get out the vote among their friends and family. She said the Commonwealth’s low voter turnout trends must be reversed. In the 2015 general election, only 30.6% of registered Kentuckians cast ballots statewide. In May’s primary election, just 20% of registered voters participated.
“‘We the people’ – those are the first three words in our Constitution. They literally mean that it’s up to us to make change and to ‘form a more perfect union.’ That starts at the ballot box. Let’s get more people to the polls on Nov. 8,” Grimes said.
Grimes has been engaged in a yearlong tour to get more Kentuckians registered to vote and to tout the Kentucky’s new one-stop election portal, GoVoteKY.com. She has made nearly 20 officials stops on her tour at Kentucky colleges and universities and has conducted numerous meetings with civic and community organizations.
The deadline to register for the Nov. 8 general election is Oct. 11.
