FRANKFORT, Ky. (WDRB) – In the months leading up to the Nov. 6 vote, Kentucky’s top elections official has been accused of overstepping her authority, retaliating against a state employee and letting her staff improperly use voter data.
The charges by Jared Dearing, executive director of the State Board of Elections, are under investigation by Kentucky’s personnel board and an independent counsel hired by the attorney general’s office. Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, who chairs the elections board, denies the allegations.
Both are Democrats.
After Dearing notified elections board members of his concerns in an August letter, the panel unanimously passed a resolution affirming Grimes’ role in the day-to-day oversight of the board and giving her access to voter registration data.
Dearing did not respond to a WDRB News request for an interview. His claims come a year after former assistant director Matt Selph was fired after he laid out concerns about voter data and other issues in a memo to the board of elections.
Selph told board members that, among other things, a Grimes staffer downloaded voter registration data several times when she was a candidate without following rules that require paying for the data.
“We have no way to know what was on it, where it went or what it was used for,” Selph, a Republican, wrote in the memo. (The board’s then-executive director, Democrat Maryellen Allen, and Selph were both let go last October.)
Selph filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the Board of Elections last fall. The suit is pending in Franklin Circuit Court.
Fayette County Clerk Don Blevins Jr., who as a state elections board member voted against firing Selph, said he has concerns about Grimes’ access to voter data and believes there ought to be an “arms-length” relationship between the board and the Secretary of State – regardless of who holds the elected office.
But, referring to Grimes, he said, “I’ve long said that we have two credible allegations from two credible sources. It seems to me it’s a no-brainer that we should investigate that and see what happens.”
In the meantime, Blevins said, he believes the state board should revoke its resolution that granted Grimes access to the voter data. He noted that past secretaries of state haven’t had that permission.
Among other things, Dearing alleged that Grimes’ staff has used the state voter information for “inappropriate reasons,” including looking up the party affiliations of current and potential elections board employees, and slowing down a federal mandate to clean up the state’s voter rolls.
After meeting in a closed session for more than three hours on Aug. 28, the elections board voted 4-0 to reaffirm Grimes’ role in the day-to-day operations of the board. The resolution was approved by two Democrats and two Republicans.
Dearing declined to comment after the meeting.
“What is now put before the press and the public as somehow nefarious or inappropriate or illegal activity is not,” Grimes told reporters at the time.
A Republican on the board, Deanna Brangers, said there had been “very healthy discussions held.”
Weeks later, on Sept. 20, the membership of the Kentucky County Clerks Association voted to “express its confidence” in Dearing and assistant director Jennifer Scutchfield, according to a letter sent to the state elections board.
In an interview last week, elections board member Ben Chandler acknowledged that there have been two complaints by high-ranking elections board employees in as many years, but he said doesn’t believe they have diminished the confidence in the state’s election system.
“I don’t doubt that some attempts may be being made to reduce the confidence, but I don’t think they have been successful,” said Chandler, a Democrat who previously served in the U.S. House of Representatives and was a Kentucky Attorney General.
“I have yet to see any evidence of anything that she’s done that would negatively affect the integrity of the election. And the only concern is the misinformation that certain people are out there spreading,” he said. “It has nothing to do with any behavior on her part. I have seen nothing but proper behavior on the part of the Secretary of State.”
In an interview, Grimes said the allegations by Dearing are unfounded, and she defended her office’s need to access the voter database as part of her job overseeing elections.
“We have someone who is just misguided, misinformed, been on the job a mere eight months in contrast to eight years and just doesn’t quite know the duties and responsibilities – especially constitutionally prescribed – to myself as chief elections official,” she said.
Grimes said voter data has “absolutely not” been used for improper purposes.
“As I’ve said, the claims are unfounded,” she said. “They are baseless. They are without merit.”
Reach reporter Marcus Green at 502-585-0825, mgreen@wdrb.com, on Twitter or on Facebook. Copyright 2018 WDRB Media. All rights reserved.
