More Work to Be Done for Kentucky Election Security

By Z. E. Kendall

In recent years, the Kentucky state legislature has made efforts to enhance our election security. For example, back in 2024, there were two key election security bills. The first bill was a voter roll clean up bill, and the second was a bill to put an amendment on the ballot to ban non-citizens from voting in state and local elections. Both of those passed.

Now, back in 2020, SB2 got passed which was marketed as a bill to help our election security. That law was originally intended to limit the forms of voting ID that would be accepted. We eliminated “personal acquaintance with a poll worker” as being sufficient for voting.

However, SB2 actually added a form of ID as legitimate to vote that wasn’t legitimate to vote before. It added EBT cards (a.k.a., “food stamp cards”) for provisional ballots. Those cards do not have any photo of any voter on them, and they can be shared with family members who regularly buy things for whole households. That legislation also kept credit cards and debit cards as legit IDs to vote.[1]

In 2025, we got passed a law to remove the credit cards and debit cards from the list of acceptable IDs. But EBT cards remain as legit ID to vote, on provisional ballots. In KRS 117.228, section 7, 2d, election law states that valid ID for provisional ballots includes, “Any food stamp identification card, electronic benefit transfer card, or supplemental nutrition assistance card, that is issued by this state and has the name of the voter stated.” Furthermore, Section 7, 2a, allows “Social Security card” a legitimate form of ID for provisional ballots.[2] Social Security cards don’t have the voter’s photo on them either.

So, the current standard in Kentucky state law seems to be focused more on making sure that the ID is an official government ID than on the aspect of the ID including a photo of the voter on it.

We need to make as few exceptions as reasonably possible for not having photo voter ID.

So, how could we do that? We could eliminate all options, even on provisional ballots, for non-photo ID, with only a religious objection as a remaining exception.

But we also need a way to concretely enforce photo ID at the ballot box. We could pass legislation enabling individual poll workers or sheriff poll workers to reject people from being able to vote if their hair color, eye color, gender, or skin color does not match the hair color, eye color, gender, or skin color that is in the image on the ID card that the prospective voter presents to the poll worker.

So, to summarize, I will give the following three recommendations for changes to election law:

1. Remove Social Security cards as being legitimate IDs to vote

2. Remove EBT cards as being legitimate IDs to vote on provisional ballots

3. Enable poll workers (or at least sheriff poll workers) to reject people from being able to vote if their appearance does not look like the person in the photograph on the ID that they present to the poll worker

With these changes, we can make photo voter-ID a true standard for Kentucky voting and enhance election security even more.

There could be even more that we could do to enhance election security. For example, the state legislature could see if the Secretary of State and Board of Elections need more money for more staff to ensure that our voter rolls get cleaned up. Legislation to authorize the cleanup the voter rolls has already been passed, but it was not passed with an increase in funding for staff to get it accomplished.

It might also be worth revisiting House Bill 580 which was passed in a prior year, to see if we want to change any of its provisions. That bill was an omnibus election bill that changed in mail-in ballot rules for those incarcerated, dealt with recognition of e-polling books of registered voters, and officially enabled the board of elections to coordinate with other agencies for the sake of voter list maintenance.

[1]     Adams, Michael G. “Sb2.” https://elect.ky.gov/Frequently-Asked-Questions/Documents/SB%202%20FAQ.pdf. Accessed 29 Dec. 2025. Web.

[2]     Legiscan. “Bill Text: KY HB684, 2025, Regular Session, Chaptered.” 2025. https://legiscan.com/KY/text/HB684/id/3226662. Accessed 30 Dec. 2025. Web.