Around 3:30 p.m. on Friday, the second day of early voting in Lexington, the line at the downtown library looped nearly all the way around the second floor — at one point winding back and forth like people waiting for a roller-coaster. Because of the bookshelves, the length of the line is a partially hidden, making the wait time a bit of a mystery. Estimates from 45 minutes to an hour-and-a-half had been floating around the crowd.
200,637 Kentuckians took advantage of Saturday early voting. With absentee ballots received so far, and in-person excused absentee voting and early voting concluded, 792,476 Kentuckians have voted in the 2024 general election to date.
— Michael Adams, KY Secretary of State (@KYSecState) November 3, 2024
"They're still in line over there. You can see it," one voter says pointing to a spot on the opposite side of the floor.
Eventually, about an hour and 20 minutes in, groups of people — some well-acquainted by this point — make their way into the conference room doubling as a voting center. Periodically cheers go up when it's announced a first time voter is walking through.
Similar scenes were repeated at library voting centers across the city as record numbers of voters queued up during three days of no-excuse in-person early voting.
By Sunday, Secretary of State Michael Adams had announced over 792,000 Kentuckians had voted in the 2024 Presidential General Election — or more than double the number who voted early in 2023.
That broke out into close to 53% Republicans, just over 40% Democrats, and more than 46,000 independents or others. Despite the large early turnout, Adams has said voters should expect the same kind of lines, or longer, on Tuesday.
See your sample ballot and more info at govote.ky.gov.
