Request By:
Hon. James Bates
Knott County Attorney
P.O. Box 404
Hindman, Kentucky 41822
Opinion
Opinion By: David L. Armstrong, Attorney General; Walter C. Herdman, Asst. Deputy Attorney General
This is in response to your letter of December 14 in which you raise the following question:
"Is it a violation of a primary candidate's constitutional right to secret ballot as set out in Section 147 of the Kentucky Constitution to require him to state under oath that he supported his parties' nominees in the last regular election and will support the parties' nominees in the regular election before allowing him to register as a candidate in a primary election? This as you know is required in the application set out in KRS 118.125."
Our response to your question would be in the negative. The provision to which you refer (KRS 118.125) requiring the candidate to certify that he supported his party nominees at the last election, was first enacted in 1912 but repealed in 1972. It was reenacted in 1984 in KRS 118.125.
In the meantime the constitutionality of that provision was raised in the case of