The Kentucky Board of Elections is reaffirming Secretary of State Alison Grime’s role in overseeing state elections.
Grime’s spokesperson Bradford Queen issued the statement Tuesday after the state board of elections met to discuss a number of allegations raised by Executive Director Jared Dearing. Queen says the board of elections voted unanimously to pass a resolution supporting Grimes’ role in carrying out the board’s statutory obligations and responsibilities in elections.
According to the Courier-Journal, the allegations made by Dearing accuse Grimes of abusing her authority. In the nine-page letter Dearing submitted to the Board of Elections, he claims Secretary Grimes or her assistants have asked him and board of elections Assistant Director Jennifer Scutchfield to do things they feel were inappropriate, unethical and potentially illegal.
One of the most significant allegations is that Grime’s office has interfered with a federal court-ordered settlement made with the U.S. Department of Justice.
The lawsuit filed by the Judicial Watch claimed that Grimes had not properly cleared Kentucky voter rolls of people who hadn’t voted in the past six years.
State officials mailed out about 600,000 postcards as part of the agreement in order to confirm the identity of those registered voters.
In his letter, the Courier-Journal said Dearing stated after 100,000 postcards were returned he was ordered to stop scanning them by Grimes’ staff. After Dearing and Scutchfield raised concerns about disobeying the federal court order, Dearing said they were told to slow-walk the process.
Dearing also accuses Grimes of giving herself the authority to send poll workers across county lines into another location at her discretion. Other allegations were made concerning how poll workers are chosen, access to poll worker voting records and improper access and use of the voter registration database.
Republican Party Chairman Mac Brown is calling for a federal investigation of Alison Grimes. He also called for whistleblower protection for Dearing and Scutchfield to prevent them from being fired for making the allegations.
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