The Courier-Journal (Louisville)
Voters caught in boundary dispute
Hundreds in Spencer, Shelby counties involved
About three weeks before the May primary election, a letter landed in the mailboxes of about 240 registered Spencer County voters, informing them they would now vote in Shelby County.
Despite everything that said they lived in Spencer County – deed, car registration, home inspection reports – updated mapping technology showed their properties were actually in Shelby County.
It’s all part of an ongoing, confusing boundary dispute affecting properties, schools and emergency services between the two counties.
But the timing of the letter and the lack of any other communication to the residents left many of those Spencer – now Shelby – County voters confused, angry, even defiant.
Voting records for 239 of the affected voters show only 29 voted in the primary in Shelby County. Eleven voters recorded a ballot in every primary dating back to 2019, but did not vote this time.
John Frymire, a Spencer-turnedShelby County resident who is also the president of his homeowner’s association, did vote in the May primary election.
“I voted in the primary in Finchville, Shelby County, because I had no other option,” Frymire told The Courier Journal.
Matt Foree, another resident, did not. “I didn’t vote this time because I had no clue what was going on,” Foree said. “When this letter came in, we didn’t know anything we know now. The letter basically said this is going to just affect voting.
“It just kind of felt weird. I have no idea who anybody is, but I’m just going to vote for Shelby County? At the time, we think we’re still going to be in Spencer County... Why do I have an interest in Shelby County if it’s only going to affect just voting?”
Why did this have to be resolved before the election?
The State Board of Elections found the boundary discrepancy during legislative redistricting when advanced mapping technology uncovered residential areas in the “physical territories of Shelby County, not in Spencer County where the voters residing in the area were registered.”
In an April 30 letter from State Board of Elections attorney Taylor Brown to the Shelby and Spencer County clerks, Brown said the clerks could have been charged with a felony if the issue was not corrected.
“Yeah, I asked for the letter because I said, ‘I need something in my file and the Spencer County Clerk needs something in their file backing us up for doing what we’re doing here,’” Tony Harover, the Shelby County Clerk, told The Courier Journal. “I don’t want to look like I’m a rogue county clerk out here moving people willy-nilly.”
In the letter, Brown cites a state precedent pertaining to voting from 1946 that says: “A citizen cannot select for himself a voting place other than the place the law constitutes his legal home and habitation. If he actually lives in one district he cannot vote in another ...”
There’s another reason why this is happening.
Rep. Randy Bridges, R-Paducah, a realty agent and developer, introduced House Bill 779 on Feb. 26 to require a digital precinct boundary file and a detailed description of the exact election precinct boundaries filed by the county board of elections with the State Board of Elections.
It went through both chambers unopposed and was signed into law April 18.
That same day, Brown sent an email to attorneys for Shelby County and the Kentucky Association of Counties: “I know neither county likely wants to find this out this close to an election, but with House Bill 779 becoming law, the GIS maps are here to stay, so this will need to be resolved.”
In the email obtained by The Courier Journal, Brown also mentioned residents should be registered to vote in Shelby County.
In the next week, records show Harover signed letters to the 240 affected voters telling them their registration had been moved.
‘I’m not aware of any other precedent for this’
A state statute governs many parts of voting, including when voters need to be registered for a primary.
The deadline for a voter to change party affiliation and be eligible to vote in that party’s upcoming primary election was Dec. 31, 2023, for the May 2024 election.
The deadline to register for the primary was April 22, 2024.
“Both of these combined provide that by April 22, the voter books are closed, and no new voters are eligible to vote in a county’s election,” said James Craig, a Louisville attorney who specializes in election law and is a Jefferson County school board member.
On April 25, Harover released a statement: “Shelby County Clerk Mandated to Move Voters along Boundary with Spencer.”
While state law says a voter’s residence determines where they vote, it also says a voter must register with the county clerk.
House Bill 580, passed during this year’s legislative session, updates the language regarding a voter’s residence, stating: “The state or county boards of elections shall not remove the name of a voter from the registration records on the ground that the voter has changed his or her residence unless the voter confirms in writing, or on a form provided by the State Board of Elections on its official website, that the voter has changed residence to a place outside the county...”
“The voter registration process always requires an affirmative act by the voter,” Craig said, “and not an act by state officials on their own initiative.”
The Courier Journal spoke with more than a dozen residents, including those who did and did not vote. They all said they never moved their registration, and that the letter said Shelby County did it for them.
The Courier Journal asked Harover what law allowed for the movement of voter registration by a county clerk rather than a voter.
“That was one of the questions we had,” Harover said. “We didn’t think we were going to be able to get the voter registration cards, but the state board said the cards — in reality, if the card is submitted in the wrong county, then you just need to get it to the right county.
“We took the voter registration records Spencer County had and that was what was used to move them over to Shelby County. We had voter records on file, they were just in the wrong county.”
That moved voters who had registered to vote in Spencer County as far back as 1973.
Voting records show a majority of the registrations were updated to Shelby County between April 19-25, including 108 on April 22, an additional 54 the next day and another 63 on April 25.
Harover dated at least 174 of those letters on April 23, after the voter books were closed and days before residents even knew there was an issue.
“I’m not aware of any other precedent for this,” Craig said. “The authority under which they voted in Shelby County is unclear to me.”
Frymire, along with three other residents, formed a committee and hired attorney Jason Nemes, who also serves in the state legislature. The committee drew up a petition to place before Dan Ison, the Shelby County Judge-Executive, for the affected residents to stay in Spencer County.
Ison previously told The Courier Journal he will place that petition on the November ballot in Shelby County, where Shelby County voters will decide what happens to their new county neighbors.
That petition needs to be on Ison’s desk, the committee was told, by Aug. 13.
But if the voters didn’t move their registration without prior consent, could there be a violation of state law?
“We’re focused at this point on moving forward, on resolving this issue,” Nemes said. “These citizens have always lived in Spencer County and paid taxes for Spencer County schools. When there’s an emergency, Spencer County ambulances and police respond. We’re looking forward and not backward and trying to get this resolved.”
“That would be for the courts to decide,” Craig said, “but it’s certainly an interesting legal question raised by what has happened on behalf of the citizens who were either denied the opportunity to vote or allowed to vote in a county (where) they didn’t live.”
‘How can we tell if we even voted?’
When Linda Royalty and her husband, Roger, chose the plot of land for their home 28 years ago in Spencer County, it was because it was halfway between her family in Bloomfield and his in Buechel.
The Royaltys said they voted in the May primary on a Spencer County absentee ballot.
“We had just sent our absentee vote when we got the letter (from the Shelby County clerk),” Linda said. “It seems like they probably crossed in the mail.”
On June 11, Linda sat around a dining room table with her neighbors and Spencer County Judge-Executive Scott Travis discussing the county conundrum.
“How can we tell if we even voted?” Royalty asked.
Travis didn’t have an answer.
In an email obtained by The Courier Journal, Richard House, the assistant director of the State Board of Elections, emailed both county clerks with the subject line on April 26: “Any Possible Absentee Voters Who Lives in the Areas Where Changes Have Occurred”.
“... I wanted to make sure that you had both checked to see if anyone in the areas that have been discussed over the last few weeks have applied for an absentee ballot for the May Primary. If so, please make sure that you worked together to update the voter with the correct ballot, as well as complete any cancellation necessary.”
Harover, the Shelby clerk, responded that same day: “... we are not aware of any requests prior to the 240 voters moved & have not had any requests since this was completed on our end.”
“I think we had a couple of voters and one residence that requested absentee,” Harover told The Courier Journal.
Linda and Roger Royalty’s voter records show they voted in the May primary. They said they never received an absentee ballot from Shelby County.
According to the Spencer County Clerk’s office, four absentee ballots were rejected, but none were for boundary issues.
Stephanie Kuzydym is an enterprise and investigative reporter. She can be reached at skuzydym@courier-journal.com.
Follow her for updates at @stephkuzy.