Nancy Solomon: You're listening to The Takeaway. I'm Nancy Solomon, in for Tanzina Vega. This Wednesday, Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear signed into law a bipartisan bill to expand voting access in the state. The bill, HB 574, passed in both chambers of the Republican-controlled state legislature before making it to the Democratic governor's desk, bucking the recent trend of GOP efforts to restrict voting access in states like Georgia, Texas, and Arizona.

Governor Andy Beshear: While some states have stepped in a different direction, I'm really proud of Kentucky.

Nancy Solomon: Here to walk us through Kentucky's new bill is Republican State Representative James Tipton who represents Kentucky's 53rd District, and is a sponsor of HB 574. Representative Tipton, welcome to the show.

Representative Tipton: Nancy, it's great to be here today.

Nancy Solomon: Tell us what exactly does this legislation do?

Representative Tipton: House Bill 574 came about as a result of last year during the pandemic that we had some emergency regulations on elections, so we had to make some changes. We looked at what some of the positive outcomes of those were and we tried to incorporate those into a permanent law. I think there are four or five main things at number one, currently the only in-person voting, we had Election Day voting prior, this would add an additional three days of in-person voting with no excuse on the Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, before the election.

The second main point it does is it allows our communities, and we have 120 counties, to request to have what we refer to as voting centers. Traditionally, in Kentucky, we have our precincts and our voting has been done at the precinct level. By utilizing these voting centers, we're able to have greater efficiencies and cost but also increased convenience to the voters. It worked out really well. Just as an example, one of the counties that I represent, Anderson County, actually did drive-through voting last year and it worked very well. They had a facility set up, and that was a great improvement.

One other significant part of the legislation dealt with curing, we refer to as curing voter signatures. Many times someone's signature changes over time, and when somebody on an absentee ballot signs that and sends it in, if it does not look right, the county officials have the opportunity to contact that individual and correct that. The other parts that we dealt with, I think dealt with security. Previously, people would call in, they would write an email to request an absentee ballot. During that last year, we set up what we call the online portal, where someone can go online to request a ballot.

We're going to continue that on a permanent basis, that is more convenient for the clerks, they can get those absentee ballots out in a quicker amount of time, but it also provides a greater deal of security. They can monitor those applications and make sure there aren't things going on that don't need to go on. There are several other parts of the legislation, but those are some of the main highlights that we included in HB 574.

Nancy Solomon: What was the motivation for including the security measures? Has there been any reason to be concerned about that in Kentucky?

Representative Tipton: I think there's always isolate cases where there may be fraud, or attempted fraud and trying to divert from the election. I think a lot of it came from our citizens. There's been a lot of discussion around the country about election security. We tried to put in measures, I think just to give a greater, number one, every vote should count. It shouldn't be countered by a vote that should not count. We put in these measures, it's a prudent thing to do to make sure these sorts of things don't happen to try and give our citizens a better understanding that their vote actually does count and these things aren't going on.

Nancy Solomon: You've been a lawmaker for a few years now, what was the push to get this going right now, the changes to the voting system?

Representative Tipton: From my perspective, I was actually contacted by one of our county clerks that I represent. He's a member of the Kentucky County Clerk's Association. I have worked on election legislation with him in the past and asked me if I would consider sponsoring a bill to implement some of the changes they wanted to make. After talking with some other members in the house, I learned that there were a couple of other people who were working on bills. We got together and decided that it would be best to have one piece of legislation working together.

That's exactly what we did. We had the Kentucky County Clerk's Association, we had the state board of elections officials, we had the Secretary of State's office. We got together, we collaborated, and we came up with what I believe is a very good piece of legislation.

Nancy Solomon: The bill got support from both Democrats and Republicans in the state. Why do you think Kentucky is bucking the trend where we're seeing Republican legislators restrict voting rights rather than opening up access?

Representative Tipton: Well, I believe what we did is we did not approach this legislation from a partisan perspective, this is about what's best for our citizens, it doesn't matter whether you're a Republican or Democrat, or an independent. We all have the right to vote, and we all need to be guaranteed that right to vote in a fair process. That was our goal moving forward with this.

Nancy Solomon: Even with the new law, some voting rights advocates say that voting access in Kentucky is still pretty strict, even compared to states like Georgia, which has been, of course, in the limelight so much recently. Is that a fair criticism?

Representative Tipton: I believe that's a correct statement. Really, there hadn't been any major changes in our election laws since our state constitution was last ratified or changed in 1891. It's been pretty consistent over the years. While it may not be as open as maybe some other states, I believe it's a big step for Kentucky. One thing you've got to understand in passing legislation, if I were sitting down and drafting this bill, I might draft it completely different, but it's about working together, it's about coming up with compromise. Sometimes it's not about what you want to pass, it's what you can get to pass. This was a package that we got a consensus on and we took a big step forward.

Nancy Solomon: Can you give me a couple of examples of some of the things that are on the books from the 19th century that maybe you would like to have changed but haven't been able to get consensus on that?

Representative Tipton: One of the big discussions that we had was how many days of early voting to have. If I'm not mistaken, I believe Georgia may have 17 days, something like that. In [unintelligible 00:07:12], we're only going to do three days. We had a lot of back and forth about the discussion. Part of the discussion centered around the cost of having early voting, or more expanded absentee voting. We had one of our counties did a cost analysis, and the cost for an absentee ballot to them was a little over $6 per ballot. An early in-person vote was around $350 and Election Day vote was around $220.

Kentucky, we're a relatively poor state, we have a lot of pension obligations. We had to keep that in mind as well and try and balance that need with the practicality of how we can move forward in as positive a way as possible.

Nancy Solomon: Do you think looking nationally at the political dynamics going on, do you think we'll see more Republican-supported efforts to expand voting access? Is Kentucky going to become the thing that people start following and doing around the country?

Representative Tipton: Well, one interesting thing in Kentucky in 2021 is we have no elections. That's why this was an ideal year to pass this legislation. It will give our local election boards the opportunity to get ready for the changes. I am confident as we go through the year, there will be some points brought up. There's always a word should be changed here or there. I anticipate that we will probably come back and make some needed tweaks and updates to the legislation. We'll just have to wait and see.

Nancy Solomon: State Representative James Tipton represents Kentucky's 53rd District. Representative Tipton, thanks so much for joining us.

Representative Tipton: You're very welcome. It's a pleasure to share with you today.

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