LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) —Some Jefferson County voters were given the wrong ballots in the primary election. It kept them from casting a ballot in a state house race that was decided by just five votes, according to Jefferson County Clerk David Yates.
"This has to be hammered out," Yates said. "This is a bigger issue."
In a letter sent Tuesday to Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg, Yates said he was recently made aware he inherited "long-standing errors with regard to voter precinct assignments" that needed to be "immediately addressed."
According to the letter, a clerical error made by a former employee in 2021 caused 30 voters living on the 4800 block of Red Dawn Drive to be assigned to the wrong precinct: A-149 instead of O-130. Yates said eight of those voters participated in the 2026 primary election — five of whom are Democrat — and, because of the error, they were unable to vote in the Kentucky House District 44 race because they received ballots tied to the wrong precinct.
That race was decided by just five votes.
In the Democratic primary for District 44, Kenya Wade defeated incumbent Beverly Chester-Burton by five votes in a three-way race that also included Jesten Slaw. After the narrow loss, Chester-Burton requested a recanvass. After reviewing vote totals from election night, the Jefferson County Clerk's Office said the count was accurate.
Chest-Burton released a statement Wednesday, saying she welcomes the effort from the clerk's office.
"As someone who has been involved in the political arena for many years, I understand the importance of fairness, equality, and protecting the voting rights of every citizen," Chester-Burton said in a written statement. "Regardless of the outcome, every voter deserves to know that their voice was heard and that the election process was conducted with transparency, integrity, and accountability. In the end an audit should reflect true outcomes."
Yates said "additional discrepancies" observed on election day prompted a comprehensive internal audit on all voter precinct assignments across Jefferson County.
"Given that voters had successfully participated in the six elections since redistricting with no reported issues, a full house-by-house review was not initially prioritized when our administration assumed office in October 2025," Yates said. "We now recognize the necessity of this thorough verification."
It's a time-consuming process, because Jefferson County doesn't have a digitalized system. The staff has to manually verify roughly 586,000 houses.
"This is time-intensive," Yates said Wednesday. "It's costly but it's necessary, and I believe that we have to lead the way for the state. If I know there's issues in one precinct, we have to assume there's issues in others -- and we've found them."
Yates said fixing the problem won't change the results of any past elections. He said doesn't have an estimate for how much the audit will cost but hopes to have it done by August. He said he is also working to modernize the technology in the clerk's office so future audits don't take as long.
Matt Mudd, a spokesperson for the mayor's office, provided the following statement:
"We're grateful to Clerk Yates for his transparency in addressing what appears to be a longstanding, unknown error. It's important to get this right and make sure that every citizen of Louisville gets to participate in the elections they're entitled to participate in."
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