Request By:
Ms. Dora N. Henry
Estill County Court Clerk
Irvine, Kentucky 40336
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in answer to your letter of July 18 in which you raise the following question:
"Please advise in writing if a request for an application for an absentee ballot can be taken by telephone for both a disabled voter and a voter that will be absent from the county on election day."
In OAG 78-424 [copy attached] this office took the position that a voter who desired to vote absentee could, pursuant to KRS 117.085, request an application form for an absent ballot from the clerk by telephone, provided the clerk could properly identify the voter. At the time this opinion was written, the law permitted only the voter's spouse to make application for the form; however, the 1980 legislature amended KRS 117.085 to also permit the voter's children to make such an application, presumedly not only for his or herself but for his parents.
There would be no distinction between a disabled voter and one who will be absent from the county on election day insofar as the procedure for requesting an application form for an absent ballot, except that the disabled voter must request a special form applicable only to disabled voters that has been promulgated by the state board of elections pursuant to the requirement of KRS 117.075.