Commentary: Kentucky’s status as a bellwether depends entirely on Fayette County

A week before Election Day, several pundits and prognosticators have predicted that Kentucky’s 6th District congressional race could be a kind of national bellwether for a potential blue wave throughout the country. 

Why? A flip from a 12-year GOP hold on the Central Kentucky district in a very red state would herald just how dissatisfied voters have become with the Republican Party controlled by President Trump. Then there’s Kentucky’s early closing polls – 6 p.m. Eastern Time, a zone the 6th District is fully inside. Kentucky is usually one of the first states reporting on election night with a possible signs of things to come.

There’s one small catch to these predictions. The 6th District race will hinge on its largest county, Fayette, and in the primary, Fayette’s results were not reported to the Secretary of State until well after 9 p.m. 

You can’t be a bellwether at 9 p.m. on election night.

But never fear, says Fayette County Clerk Susan Lamb. Things will be different this time around.

In the primary, two or three precincts out of 127 had trouble uploading the results to the V Drive, which then had to be driven and delivered by hand to the county clerk’s office downtown. Lamb decided to wait for all the results to be in before uploading them to the state.

This Election Day, she said, her office will count all the absentee ballots and in person absentee results right after the polls close at 6 p.m., then upload them to the state.

Then they will wait for the precincts to deliver the rest of the votes. If there are lulls in the action, “we are going to continue scanning and upload the results as they come in,” she said.

Also in May, there were a large number of first-time poll workers and quite a few workers who didn’t show up. 

“What happened in the primary were circumstances we didn’t expect,” Lamb said. “But now we know we have an alternative way of handling this.”

Other populous counties upload results as they come in, so folks watching can have a sense of which way the votes are going. Which everyone appreciates. Anything can go wrong, and the 6th District results are also depending on 15 other counties.

So whether the 6th District makes Kentucky a bellwether or not, here’s hoping it’s a smooth evening for everyone.