Request By:
Honorable W. S. Jones
Attorney at Law
Elkton, Kentucky 42220
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in answer to your letter of February 1 in which you raise the following question:
"I would like to know who would be chairman of the Election Commission where the County Court Clerk is a candidate himself and who would perform his other duties as a member of the Election Commission."
In response to your question, we refer you to KRS 117.035 (2), which reads in part as follows:
". . . Where from any cause the county clerk or sheriff cannot act, the two (2) appointed members shall appoint a commissioner to serve during the period the county clerk or sheriff is ineligible. If the two (2) appointed members cannot agree on a substitute to function in place of the clerk or sheriff who becomes disqualified, such fact shall be certified to the state board within five (5) days and the board shall immediately appoint a person to serve during the period that such officer is ineligible. Service on the board of elections shall be compatible with the holding of any other county office. The members shall be at least twenty-one (21) years of age, qualified voters in the county from which they are appointed, and not a candidate to be voted for at the election. . . ." (Emphasis added).
When the county clerk becomes a candidate, he is automatically disqualified from serving on the county board of elections and the two party members must select someone to serve in his place during the period that he remains a candidate as pointed out in the above excerpt of the quoted statute. Since he serves as chairman of the board, whoever is selected to serve in his place will also serve as chairman. The clerk, of course, regardless of the fact that he is a candidate for public office, continues to perform all other election duties required of him by law.