Declare: Polls typically find that Americans trust elections run in their own backyard much more than those in other communities and states. What should the average American who doesn’t live in your backyard . . . know about elections in your state?
Secretary Michael Adams: Well, I want everyone outside of Kentucky to know that we take election integrity very seriously. Kentucky uniquely has a history of election fraud. I’m not proud of that. It’s something that we take very seriously, and we take a lot of steps to combat.
I think it’s very important that folks know that we have not just protocols for election integrity — photo ID to vote, clean up voter rolls — but we also have expanded voting access. We now have 10 days to go vote in person, not just one.
If you want to have people trust your election process, you have to have security, but you also have to have access.
Declare: Granting that there isn’t a single “American election system” — what is your opinion of American elections, in general?
Adams: I give American elections a B-plus. You can always do better, and you can never rest on your laurels. There’s a temptation by those that run the elections to get them our way and then stop, but we can’t. We have to continuously improve the process to maintain public confidence. That’s really important.
But I do think that we’ve done more to improve elections since 2020. We didn’t really appreciate elections until 2020. We have legislatures that come into session every year to improve education, justice policy, taxes — you name it. It’s great, but they weren’t improving elections.
And really, both parties have stepped up since 2020, in most states, to make elections better. And so I’d say any election, anywhere in the country today is better than it was six or seven years ago.
Declare: Since the COVID year, congressional Democrats, congressional Republicans, and President Trump have taken turns trying to create election policy. From your perspective — what could the federal government provide that could actually help you do your job?
Adams: Well, the great framers of our Constitution made very, very clear, very early in that document, that the states run our elections. It’s not the federal government’s job. They don’t know more than we do about how to run our own elections in our own states.
If they want to be helpful, instead of telling us how to do our jobs, they can actually be good partners, and they can help fund what we’re doing.
Every election is a mix of various offices. It’s federal offices, it’s state offices, it’s local offices. And so we need a tripod of funding. We need federal money, state money, local money, to stand these things up and pay our poll workers.
So the best thing that Washington can do is pay their fair share of the cost of running the elections. That’s the beneficial thing they can do. What they really should stay out of is telling us how to do our job.
State of the Secretaries with Michael Adams
Declare: Polls typically find that Americans trust elections run in their own backyard much more than those in other communities and states. What should the average American who doesn’t live in your backyard . . . know about elections in your state?
Secretary Michael Adams: Well, I want everyone outside of Kentucky to know that we take election integrity very seriously. Kentucky uniquely has a history of election fraud. I’m not proud of that. It’s something that we take very seriously, and we take a lot of steps to combat.
I think it’s very important that folks know that we have not just protocols for election integrity — photo ID to vote, clean up voter rolls — but we also have expanded voting access. We now have 10 days to go vote in person, not just one.
If you want to have people trust your election process, you have to have security, but you also have to have access.
Declare: Granting that there isn’t a single “American election system” — what is your opinion of American elections, in general?
Adams: I give American elections a B-plus. You can always do better, and you can never rest on your laurels. There’s a temptation by those that run the elections to get them our way and then stop, but we can’t. We have to continuously improve the process to maintain public confidence. That’s really important.
But I do think that we’ve done more to improve elections since 2020. We didn’t really appreciate elections until 2020. We have legislatures that come into session every year to improve education, justice policy, taxes — you name it. It’s great, but they weren’t improving elections.
And really, both parties have stepped up since 2020, in most states, to make elections better. And so I’d say any election, anywhere in the country today is better than it was six or seven years ago.
Declare: Since the COVID year, congressional Democrats, congressional Republicans, and President Trump have taken turns trying to create election policy. From your perspective — what could the federal government provide that could actually help you do your job?
Adams: Well, the great framers of our Constitution made very, very clear, very early in that document, that the states run our elections. It’s not the federal government’s job. They don’t know more than we do about how to run our own elections in our own states.
If they want to be helpful, instead of telling us how to do our jobs, they can actually be good partners, and they can help fund what we’re doing.
Every election is a mix of various offices. It’s federal offices, it’s state offices, it’s local offices. And so we need a tripod of funding. We need federal money, state money, local money, to stand these things up and pay our poll workers.
So the best thing that Washington can do is pay their fair share of the cost of running the elections. That’s the beneficial thing they can do. What they really should stay out of is telling us how to do our job.
More on this topic
Stephen Richer’s Testimony to House Judiciary Subcommittee on Noncitizen Voting
State of the Secretaries with Stephanie Thomas
Mail Ballot Rule Won’t Apply to Midterms, Supreme Court Decides