Request By:
Honorable Jack L. White
Mayor, City of Manchester
City Hall
108 Richmond Road
Manchester, Kentucky 40962
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in answer to your letter of March 12 in which you seek an opinion concerning the following:
"We have a housing project which is located in the city limits of Manchester. It has been in the city since it was constructed which was over ten years ago. The County Court Clerk will not allow the residents to vote in District No. 1, which is the voting district in which they live.
"QUESTION: Does he have a right to keep these people from voting in the voting district in which they live."
Those persons living in the housing project [which is located within the city limits of the city of Manchester] and maintaining that such is their legal residence, would be entitled to register and vote as any other city resident. Legal residence is based on fact and intention and consists of an actual residence at a particular place, coupled with the intent to remain there. See Nunn v. Hamilton, 233 Ky. 662, 26 S.W. 526 (1930). The principles for determining voting residence are related in detail in OAG 73-426 (attached).
On the other hand, if the individuals living in the housing project are living there temporarily and maintaining a residence elsewhere, they would not be qualified to register and vote at the project.
If these individuals are legal residents of the project, and thus the city, and are refused the right to register, they may appeal to the county board of elections and then to circuit court if necessary.