Request By:
The Honorable Nelson Robert Allen
State Senator
Russell, Kentucky 41169
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in answer to your letter of March 29 in which you raise the question as to whether or not a person would be eligible to vote on a school bond issue at a special election called for April 12, 1977, if such person is only seventeen (17) years of age at the time of the election but will be eighteen (18) by the general election, November 8.
The answer to your question would be in the negative. KRS 116.045 permits any person to register as a voter during the period registration books are open if he possesses, or will possess on the day of the next election, the qualifications prescribed by KRS 116.025. KRS 116.025 (1) provides that every person who is a resident of this state and has resided in the precinct in which he offers to vote thirty (30) days next preceding the day of any regular or special election, who possesses on the day of any election the qualifications set forth in Section 145 of the Constitution, exclusive of the durational residency requirements, and who is registered as provided in KRS 116.045, may vote for all officers to be elected and on all public questions submitted for determination at the election, in the precinct in which he is qualified to vote. Section 145 of the Constitution provides that "every citizen of the age of eighteen (18) shall have the right to vote."
When reading the referred to section of the Constitution and statutes together, it is clear that a person who will reach the age of eighteen (18) by the coming November election may register to vote if he possesses the residential requirements but he cannot vote in any election, special or regular, until he reaches the age of 18. This would preclude him from voting in the special school bond issue election on April 12 since he will not have reached the age of 18 by the time for holding said election.
The only exception whereby a 17-year old may vote is in the primary election, which, of course, is merely a nominating procedure and not an "election" within the meaning of Sections 147 and 148 of the Constitution and KRS 116.050.