Charles Booker led Amy McGrath by 49 percentage points among Fayette County voters who cast their ballot in person Tuesday, but most of the votes in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate were submitted by mail and have not yet been counted.
Booker won 72 percent of the in-person vote in Lexington, with 1,566 votes. McGrath won 23 percent of the vote, with 499 votes.
Fayette County reported the results of in-person voting Tuesday night but the vast majority of people in Tuesday’s election voted by absentee ballot.
Any ballot that was postmarked by Election Day will count toward the vote total, which means county clerks will still be receiving ballots through the week. Rather than release results as they’re counted, Fayette County Clerk Don Blevins Jr. will release the results on June 30 when they are due to the State Board of Elections. Jefferson County and many others are doing the same.
Statewide, about 161,238 people voted in-person, which makes up just 14 percent of the projected 1.1 million votes in Tuesday’s election, according to the secretary of state’s office. McGrath led Booker 44 percent to 37.6 percent statewide, based largely on in-person voting results Tuesday, according to the Associated Press. Those votes will make up a fraction of the eventual total.
A total of 3,851 people voted on Election Day in Lexington, with 3,760 people voting at Kroger Field and 181 people voting at the Lexington Senior Center, according to results posted at the two locations. The senior center was reserved for people who have disabilities.
In comparison, Fayette County has processed 67,973 absentee ballots so far — 73 percent of the 92,611 ballots that were requested. Blevins said 12,000 ballots came in the mail Tuesday and another 12,000 came in the mail Wednesday. He said the county has received around 85,000 ballots back so far.
Lexington and Louisville make up 28.7 percent of registered Democrats.
Some counties have reported higher numbers. In Bath County, McGrath is ahead of Booker 50.3 percent to 22.3 percent in what would be the equivalent of 26 percent turnout. In Montgomery County, McGrath is ahead of Booker 48.3 percent to 30.2 percent, with 27 percent turnout. The number of votes in each county will likely increase in the coming days.
In Kenton County, which had 1,724 in-person voters on Election Day (Booker 56.3%, McGrath 37.2%), the county has processed at least 21,982 absentee ballots, out of 30,000 that were requested. Kenton County Clerk Gabrielle Summe said the clerk’s office received an additional 2,000 ballots Wednesday.
Booker has been making a late push in the race, complete with a bus tour and volunteers knocking on doors in an effort to build support in the days leading up to the election. McGrath, who has spent more than $21 million, has been relatively quiet in the final days of the campaign, but set up a website for her supporters to request an absentee ballot when the online portal went live in late May.
http://www.kentucky.com/news/politics-government/article243753282.html
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