Small percent of Kentucky voters cast ballots by mail
Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear gives the State of the Commonwealth address at the Thomas D. Clark Center for Kentucky History in Frankfort, Kentucky, on Jan. 7, 2026. Photo by Arden Barnes for the Kentucky Lantern
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said a recent executive order from President Donald Trump to limit mail-in voting nationwide is “wholly and entirely unconstitutional.” However, even if the order stands, most voters in Kentucky do not mail their ballots.
Beshear is the chair of the Democratic Governors Association, which is one of several Democratic groups seeking to block Trump’s executive order with a federal lawsuit filed Wednesday evening. The complaint says the DGA and its members, which includes some current candidates for office, “are directly impacted by the Order, which purports to alter the rules governing their elections.”
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks from the Cross Hall of the White House on April 1, 2026 in Washington, D.C. (Photo by Alex Brandon-Pool/Getty Images)
Trump, a Republican, signed the executive order Tuesday. It directs the U.S. Department of Homeland Security along with the Social Security Administration to compile a list of voting-age American citizens in each state and share it with state election officials. The order also requires the U.S. Postal Service to only send and receive ballots that include tracking barcodes and requires states that intend to allow mail-in or absentee ballots to be sent by mail to notify the Postal Service at least 90 days before a federal election.
Asked about how the new executive order could impact Kentucky voters, Beshear said in his Thursday press conference that “it shouldn’t affect Kentuckians because it is wholly and entirely unconstitutional.”
“The President doesn’t have the power, especially through executive order, to impact elections that are held by states, and whose rules and procedures are set by those states,” the governor said. “This executive order is one of the most unconstitutional acts that I’ve seen from this president, and I think they know it.
Despite opposing mail-in voting, Trump voted by mail in a recent special election in Florida. He later told reporters he did so “because I’m president of the United States, and because of the fact that I’m president of the United States, I did a mail-in ballot for elections that took place in Florida because I felt I should be here instead of being in the beautiful sunshine.”
Nick Storm, a spokesperson for Republican Secretary of State Michael Adams’ office, said it is reviewing the order, “but we do not expect it to have a significant impact in Kentucky relative to other states.”
“We do not conduct vote-by-mail elections, and only 2%-4% of our voters vote by absentee ballot in a typical election,” Storm said. “Moreover, we do not expect the EO to be implemented so soon as to affect the May primary.”
Kentucky voters can request absentee ballots ahead of elections for certain reasons, like being a college student who will not be in their home county on an Election Day, or not being able to vote in-person on an election day or early voting days.
Trump’s executive order does have some exceptions for states who allow absentee voting.
Because Kentucky does not have vote-by-mail elections, the State Board of Elections does not foresee changes for voters under the order.
“The President’s recent executive order will have no impact on next month’s party primaries in Kentucky and given the timing of what is involved in the order, it seems highly unlikely that it could be implemented for November, if it survives the courts,” said State Board of Elections Executive Director Karen Sellers.
TACO still crying about the 2020 election he lost