Request By:
Mr. Gary Caudill
Route 1 Box 144
Booneville, Kentucky 41314
Opinion
Opinion By: Steven L. Beshear, Attorney General; By: Walter C. Herdman, Assistant Deputy Attorney General
This is in response to your letter of May 15 in which you raise a question involving assistance to disabled voters, and more specifically illiterate voters. You relate that it is the contention of the precinct judges that a person is not illiterate if he can't read the machine but can read English to some extent. Thus, the question is whether or not a person who may be considered illiterate to a degree is entitled to have assistance in casting his vote on election day.
The statute involved is KRS 117.255 which reads in part as follows:
"No voter shall be permitted to receive any assistance in voting at the polls unless he makes and signs an oath that, by reason of inability to read English, or by reason of blindness or other physical disability he is unable to vote without assistance. . . ."
You will note the above statute qualifies an individual voter for assistance who is unable to read English. The fact that he may be to a degree literate and able to understand certain words but, on the other hand, is unable to read and understand the names of various candidates and the instruction in the voting machine would, in our opinion, not disqualify him from receiving assistance in voting as provided in said statute. As you know the statute requires such voter to execute an oath to the effect that he has this disability which is submitted to the commonwealth attorney to present to the grand jury for possible prosecution for perjury. It is basically not the duty of the election officers to determine the extent of one's disability where he is willing to swear or affirm that he possesses such disability.