Daviess County has hired temporary workers to handle an increasing number of mail-in ballots arriving ahead of Kentucky's June 23 primary election.
Residents are being encouraged to vote by mail in order to prevent the spread of COVID-19.
So far, Daviess County has mailed out more than 7,300 absentee ballots and has 4,300 more in the queue that will soon be mailed out.
When voters request an absentee ballot through the online state portal at GoVoteKY.com, each one has to have three labels printed - one for the mailing envelope, and then an inner and outer label for the voter to return the ballot to the county clerk.
Daviess County Clerk Leslie McCarty said the labels are printed from the online requests and delivered to each of Kentucky's 120 counties.
“We have three to four groups right now putting together the ballot packets, and then putting the labels on the packets," said McCarty. "These same groups of people will also be the ones scanning the bar codes, checking them in, verifying their signature, and scanning the ballots into the machine. It’s a big process.”
She said most of those temporary employees are poll workers who have experience with the election process.
Daviess County has hired six full-time temporary employees and 16 part-time temporary employees to keep those mail-in ballots moving along, McCarty said.
Voters can also request an absentee ballot by calling their county clerk's office.
The deadline to request mail-in ballots is Monday, June 15.
They must be mailed back to the county clerk and postmarked by the day of the state primary, June 23.
Another option is to vote in-person, by appointment, at the county courthouse until June 22. McCarty said Daviess County has so far had more than 200 walk-in voters.
Residents can still choose to vote in-person the day of the primary.
"On Election Day, there will be one precinct polling place open and that will be at the SportsCenter," said McCarty. "We picked the SportsCenter because it is the biggest facility in Daviess County. We’ll be inside the gym area, so there’s plenty of room to safely social distance."
Daviess County has 76,306 registered voters.
