MURRAY – In a ceremony streamed on YouTube, Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman randomly selected the 12 counties that will undergo post-election inquiries for the 2024 General Election.
“Earlier this month,” Coleman said during the ceremony, “Kentuckians went to the polls to exercise one of their greatest freedoms: their franchise, their right to vote. Whether it was early, whether it was absentee voting, or whether it was standing in line at your polling places, we all did our part to elect the next generation of leaders of this commonwealth and of this nation. We, at the Attorney General’s Office, stood – and stand – to protect the security of the ballot and the integrity of our very elections.”
Kentucky law requires post-election inquiries to be conducted in 12 of the 120 counties in the commonwealth following every election. The audits, which are conducted by the Attorney General’s Department of Criminal Investigations, include interviews with the county clerks, the election officials and some of the voters themselves, Coleman explained before the drawing. Detectives will review records, and prosecutors will present the findings to a grand jury in each respective county.
“The tension in here, you could it with a knife,” Coleman said as he drew slips of paper out of a miniature bourbon barrel that sat on a table next to the podium.
Calloway was the first county drawn, followed by Jefferson, Daviess, Jessamine, Boyle, Barren, Warren, Campbell, Metcalfe, Edmonson, Lincoln and Trigg counties.
Calloway County Clerk Antonia Faulkner said there is not much to the process. “Of course, you hate to hear the word ‘audit,’” she acknowledged, but from her perspective, it is simply a matter of making sure all of the requested election-related paperwork is provided to the investigators.
“Every year, the (attorney general) is going to draw 12 names,” Faulkner explained. “Now, it’s not always been on YouTube – in the past, they just sent out a notice (that said) these are the counties that were drawn – but yes, every election cycle, the attorney general does this. And you get put back in every time. A neighboring county has been drawn three elections in a row; bless her heart. I’m not going to complain at all! It was about time for us to be (drawn) again anyway. I was involved in post-election audits in 2013 and 2016. So, it’s been a few years, not a lot, but a few.”
Audits were also conducted following the primary election in May. Coleman advised that 10 of the 12 audits have been presented to a grand jury with no findings. As for the remaining two, he said that the primary investigations have concluded, and findings will be presented to a grand jury in the very near future.
“So, that gives you a sense of timing,” he added. “Our hope is in early 2025 to get the (general election audits) squared away. This is a labor-intensive process, which is why it takes a number of months. And then it’s also important that, once that report is completed by our detectives – and these are experienced investigators with decades and decades of experience under their belts; the DCI is no joke in terms of if it’s investigative efficacy – (they present) that to a grand jury (and) take questions, tough questions. You can get some pretty tough questions depending upon who the grand jurors are. And so, they look through these reports with a fine-tooth comb. It’s a testament to how we conduct our elections here in this commonwealth.”
Faulkner explained that, after every election, results are presented to a local grand jury. “So, if there was anything out of the ordinary, that will be reported to the grand jury (anyway). Very fortunate we’ve been in Calloway County that we’ve never had anything like that. It’s been very smooth. Of course, we take every part of the election seriously. We’ve done what we’re required to do, so I don’t have any concerns about that.”
“It doesn’t have anything to do with the actual vote or the count at the end,” she continued. “It’s not anything like that. Basically, these post-election audits are to make sure that we handled each procedure correctly. We know every vote was counted; we were audited for that already. So, this is just to make sure we did the paperwork we were supposed to and that we allowed the voters to vote in the way that they needed to that was best for them. It is just an audit, and as fast as we can get the paperwork to them, they’ll review it as fast as they can, and then they’ll let us know that everything is okay. So, we’re just looking forward to that part of it, for sure.”
“We’re undertaking this effort to help every Kentuckian have faith that their elections are free, fair and secure,” Coleman said. “At the end of this professional, independent and fair inquiry, it’s our hope that confidence in our elections remains high amongst our fellow Kentuckians.”
