FRANKFORT, Ky. (LEX 18) — Heading into the election, the Office of the Attorney General provided a way for Kentuckians to report any suspected voter fraud with the elections law violation hotline.
The hotline received a total of 376 calls during the 2020 election cycle, 111 of which were made to the hotline on Election Day.
In previous years, the number of complaints were fewer. During the 2016 general election, Kentuckians made 216 complaints to the hotline and in the 2012 general election, the hotline received 183 calls.
Kentucky State Board of Elections Chairman Ben Chandler explained many of the complaints investigated in 2020 were found to be non-fraudulent.
“Of all the so-called complaints that were sent into the hotline, very few of them had anything to do with fraud. What few there were, were very minor in nature,” Chandler said. “This election has been more secure. It’s been cleaner and just been beautifully handled by people up and down the system.”
Chandler also noted the board anticipated to receive more calls than they did both because of President Donald Trump’s call for his supporters to watch the polls closely and because the voting process underwent many changes this year.
Kentucky both expanded absentee voting and provided access to early voting for the 2020 general election.
“Whenever politicians, particularly those with a giant megaphone, talk about things like [watching polls] you can expect people would be ginned up and would complain a little bit more but we didn’t see that. That speaks to how well this election was run by all the people who were running it,” Chandler said. “I’m frankly astounded at how well it worked particularly given the complexity of it and the fact we’d never done it before.”
Here are the top eight complaints people called the hotline about:
- 94 calls about procedural questions
- 67 calls about general election fraud/other
- 36 calls about special or absentee ballots
- 36 calls about electioneering
- 21 calls about mailer
- 16 calls about election officials
- 7 calls about legal questions
- 7 calls about residency
You can see the county breakdown of complaints here.
