Adams offers plan to open more voting locations in Ky.

FRANKFORT, Ky. (WTVQ) — Secretary of State Michael Adams says Kentucky needs more voting locations — not days — and shared his plan on how the state can do just that.

In a Wednesday address to the General Assembly, Adams said he believes early voting works, and that the counties with long lines on Nov. 8 would have had even longer lines had their voters not already had three days of early voting to vote.

“Although I’m proud of early voting, the solution to long lines is not to add more voting days, at least not in a non-presidential election year. More than four times as many voters voted on Tuesday, November 8th, as voted in the three early voting days combined. The lesson here is that in order to reduce lines, we need more voting locations, not more voting days,” Adams added.

He gave three ideas on how to increase voting locations: emergency powers, developing a formula to set a floor for how many voting locations a county needs for early voting and Election Day, or incentivizing counties to open more voting locations when they apply for funds.

He also discussed ways he believes Kentucky can improve voting experiences.

Closing the loophole that allows electioneering at the polls during early voting and improving the recount process are two more ideas of his.

“Although none of these changes is major, they are all important. I am well aware that this is an election year, and the temptation is to do little and leave the election rules alone. I would submit that an election year, particularly one in which we expect close outcomes in major races, is exactly the time to make these modest but crucial improvements to the process,” he said.