Sec. of State to Investigate Fraud Allegations in Clay County

State and federal officials will investigate an alleged vote-fraud scheme yesterday in six of Clay County's 20 precincts, Secretary of State Trey Grayson said last night.

"This will be high priority for the (state) attorney general's office and the U.S. attorney to pursue," Grayson said. "That one sounds like something happened."

Grayson said his office received about 15 phone calls regarding possible fraud in Clay County. The alleged fraud involved deliberate misinformation about the voting process, he said.

Poll workers allegedly told voters that they had already cast their vote, even though voters were still looking at a screen that only summarized their selections.

The "voter would leave without the ballot being cast," he said.

Someone would then delete or alter what a voter had put on the ballot, he said.

Clay County has been plagued for decades by allegations of election fraud and vote-buying, but some county leaders had thought a recent federal drug-and-corruption case might make this year different.

"We've got some hope for a clean election," the Rev. Doug Abner, pastor of the Manchester Community Church, said last month. "We ain't had one in 150 years -- probably ain't never had one."

Vicki Glass, spokeswoman for state Attorney General Greg Stumbo, declined to comment on the allegations other than to say that agents were sent to counties where there were allegations of vote fraud or other violations.

After all polls closed, Glass said the attorney general's office had received 184 complaints statewide.

Most machines work well

Meanwhile, voters in Fayette County and elsewhere generally adjusted quickly and smoothly to new electronic voting machines.

"Everything went better than normal," said County Clerk Don Blevins.

Grayson said he was "pleasantly surprised by the voter's reaction, especially in Fayette County, which was the largest jurisdiction with all new equipment."

Deanna Smith, 41, a school counselor, seemed to speak for most voters regarding the new machines.

"I was concerned that maybe they would be too high-tech for some older people who weren't too used to computers, but they were quite simple," she said after voting at Bluegrass Community & Technical College on Leestown Road.

Rose Gavenois, a Harrods Hill precinct voter, saw a generational advantage to the new equipment.

"I think the younger people will like them because they're like a video game," she said.

Although there were some voting machine problems in Fayette County early in the day, most were minor and were corrected promptly.

Kitty Ware, election coordinator for the Fayette County Clerk's office, said technicians were called to six or seven precincts to correct problems. The county usually has four to six such calls.

Meanwhile, statewide voter turnout seemed below the 35 percent predicted by the Secretary of State's office.

"It was poor, but not surprising," said Ferrell Wellman, an Eastern Kentucky University journalism professor and election night analyst for WLEX-TV.

In Lexington, the turnout was about 25 to 26 percent, and statewide turnout was about 18 to 19 percent, Wellman said.