Request By:
Mrs. Joan S. Perry
Route 9 Hillcrest
Richmond, Kentucky 40475
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in answer to your letter of February 26, 1979 in which you relate that you are a candidate for the Office of State Representative in the May Primary and as such you raise the question as to whether or not the provisions in KRS 117.315 require you to poll twenty-five percent of the candidates on the primary ballot in order to obtain two challengers in a given precinct?
KRS 117.315(6) contains the following:
. . . Any group of bona fide condidates, as defined in KRS 118.176, of the same political party equal to twenty-five percent (25%) of all the candidates for that party to be voted for in a county in any primary, including state, district and all other candidates, may recommend to the county committee or governing authority of the party for the county a list of persons whom they desire to have appointed as challengers in each precinct in the county. . . .
The above quote clearly requires that at least twenty-five percent (25%) of all the candidates of your particular party in the primary must combine and agree to recommend challengers in order for such challengers to be appointed. The statute further clearly indicates, when it speaks of all the candidates of a party, that this means every candidate for every office to be voted for in the primary including state, district and local candidates.
We trust the above answers your question.