Kentucky

Why did Kentucky get called for Trump so fast? How KY counts its votes

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Kentucky was one of the first states to call the presidential race in 2024, thanks in part to election laws that speed up the vote-counting process, Secretary of State’s Office spokesperson Michon Lindstrom said.

Kentucky law allows county clerks to begin processing absentee ballots before polls close, unlike some states, Lindstrom said, which gives election workers a head start on the work for when they can start officially counting votes. Processing of mail-in ballots can begin up to 14 days before an election and must begin by 8 a.m. on election day, according to Kentucky law.

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The procedure for processing mail-in ballots can vary slightly from state to state, according to USA TODAY, but it typically prepares the ballot to be counted by verifying the voter’s information and eligibility on the mail ballot envelope, opening the envelope and removing the ballot.

Kentucky polls also close at 6 p.m. local time, making it and Indiana the first two states in the country to close polls, USA TODAY reported.

Winning in Kentucky has been a fairly easy feat for former President Donald Trump in his previous two campaigns, claiming the state by comfortable margins in both elections. He garnered 62.5% of Kentuckians’ votes in 2016 and 62.1% in 2020. Trump was projected to repeat his dominance in Kentucky in 2024.

Kentucky became the first state the Associated Press called in the 2020 General Election when the organization declared Trump the winner around 7 p.m., roughly an hour after polls closed. A similar pattern unfolded in 2016, when Kentucky was among the first three states called by Associated Press.

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The commonwealth’s two largest counties, Jefferson and Fayette, are the only two locales where Democratic nominees outstripped their Republican opponent in 2016 and 2020. In Jefferson County, 59.1% of votes went to then-candidate Joe Biden in 2020. In 2016, 54.1% of votes in the county went to former Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

This story may update.



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