Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes’ efforts to allow online voter registration in Kentucky kept moving through the legislative process Tuesday, though one lawmaker tried to derail it. State Sen. Ernie Harris, R-Crestwood, tried to get his colleagues on the legislature’s Administrative Regulation Review Subcommittee to declare deficient a new state regulation allowing online voter registration. But his request died on a 4-3 vote on the regulation, proposed by the Kentucky State Board of Elections. The legislature’s State Government Committee will review the regulation at its next meeting in a few weeks. If that panel signs off on it, the regulation would take effect in several months.
Harris voiced opposition to the regulation adopted unanimously earlier this year by the bipartisan State Board of Elections, which Grimes chairs as the state’s chief election official.
Grimes, a Democrat from Lexington, is seeking re-election this year in a race against Republican Steve Knipper of Independence.
Harris expressed concerns about online security and said the Kentucky County Clerks Association opposes the regulation.
Neither Bill May, executive director of the clerks association, nor the group’s president, Lawrence County Clerk Chris Jobe, was immediately available for comment.