Request By:
Mr. Jerry W. Rouse
Boone County Clerk
Burlington, Kentucky 41005
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in answer to your letter of January 12 in which you refer to the fact that Boone County has the commission form of government consisting of three (3) commission districts from which commissioners are to be nominated at the coming May primary. You further relate that a third class city is the highest class in your county. Under the circumstances, the following questions are presented:
"1. Are the commissioners in the May Primary to be voted on by district only or are they to be voted on county wide?
"2. How are the commissioners to be voted on in the November General Election? "
In response to your questions, we refer you to KRS 67.060 dealing with the election of county commissioners and particularly subsection 3, which reads as follows:
"Persons seeking the nomination of a political party as candidate for the office of county commissioner shall, where a primary election is required for such political party, be voted upon exclusively by the eligible voters of the district in which the person resides and seeks to represent. Persons seeking the nomination of a minor political party, persons who file as independent candidates or persons seeking the nomination in counties containing cities of the second class shall not be subject to the provisions of this paragraph. They shall be nominated by the voters of the entire county."
You will note from the above quote [which applies to all counties] that any person seeking the nomination of a political party for the office of county commissioner at the May primary must be voted upon exclusively by the eligible voters of the district from which he runs and in which he resides. The only exception being primary races in counties containing cities of the second class.
As a consequence, county commissioners seeking nomination at the May primary in Boone County are to be nominated solely by the eligible party voters of the district from which they run. Of course, at the November election they are voted upon on a countywide basis as required in subsection (1) of KRS 67.060 and § 144 of the Constitution.