This year, state election officials have encountered a number of unusual challenges — ranging from the loss or retirement of a number of county clerks, some of whom cited stress as the reason for leaving the job early, to a deluge of information requests driven by election misinformation and disinformation.
As for the information requests, former Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson, a Republican, told a Center for American Progress webinar that the problem was widespread.
"Kentucky, Pennsylvania, every other state in the country were bombarded with open records requests a few weeks ago from folks who still believe that the 2020 election was stolen — falsely to be clear — and the reason for that was the timing that we have to keep election records for about 22 months."Former Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson
Grayson said, while some of the requests were likely from people who were "well-intentioned, just misguided," others were "bad actors." And the flood of requests interfered with planning for the upcoming midterms.
In the meantime, there was a late-breaking surge in voter registrations. Compared with August, September and the beginning of October saw double the number of voters sign up. Secretary of State Michael Adams told WLEX the group that saw the largest increase wasn't Republicans or Democrats.
"There's been a surge in independent voters," Adams said. "Of those, 45% are young voters."
The bigger question: Will they show up, and will they turn the tide on any races? On those counts, election observers are more skeptical — but Election Day is still a week away.
