Request By:
Ms. Judy Long Witt, Secretary
Kentucky County Clerks Association
P.O. Box 4156
Frankfort, Kentucky 40603-4156
Opinion
Opinion By: Frederic J. Cowan, Attorney General; David H. Ashley, Assistant Attorney General
As Secretary of the Kentucky County Clerks Association, you have requested an opinion from this office as to whether or not the State Board of Elections can issue an administrative regulation which would essentially require that only one copy of the "Permanent Voter Registration Record", form SBE-01, may used.
More specifically, your request involves the question as to whether or not KRS 116.075 which requires that the voter, at the time of registration, shall sign the registration form in duplicate mandates both the continued use of both the original and a copy of the registration form.
Your letter requesting this opinion provided background information as to the use of the duplicate card system, which information has been confirmed with the State Board of Elections. Briefly, the original voter registration record was designed for use at the polling place as the election officers' record of the voters registered in the precinct. At the time at which Kentucky went on the statewide computerized voter registration system, KRS 116.075 required that the voter sign the original and duplicate of the registration card. One copy of the form was retained by the county clerk. The other form was sent to the State Board of Elections for entry into the computerized voter registration system. Previous to that time the clerks had sent copies of the registration card to the precinct so that the election officers used the card for comparison of signatures in each precinct. In 1982 KRS 116.075 was amended to provide that such counties who were on a computerized information system could forward registration data via diskettes or tapes to the State Board in lieu of the original cards. In 1986 the State Board of Elections changed the state computer system so that all county clerks entered all voter registration on-line through the state's automated voter information system, and no clerks sent any cards to the State Board. In 1986 KRS 117.225 (1) was amended to allow county boards of elections the option of not sending the cards to the precincts for comparative signature purposes. In addition, in 1988 KRS 117.227 was enacted, which now requires that each voter be personally known by an election officer or present adequate other identification such as a social security card, driver's license, or credit card, or swear to a voter's oath.
The clerks now request that only a single original voter registration card be used and assert that any need for a second card has been obviated by the computer system, and by practical usage. You are thus requesting that the State Board of Elections promulgate a regulation which would direct that the voter registration record to be used will be the single original form and that such form will be used by the clerks as their alphabetical voter record file in their individual offices.
KRS 116.075 reads as follows:
"(1) At the time of registration, the applicant shall fill in the form in duplicate and sign both copies. One (1) form shall be retained by the county clerk. The other form shall be sent to the State Board of Elections at bi-weekly intervals.
(2) Within three (3) days following the closing of registration prior to an election, the clerk shall report all new registrations made since his previous report was filed.
(3) In counties where the number of registrants is great enough to warrant the expense of renting or purchasing data processing equipment, such counties may submit the list of registrants on diskettes or other computer ready method in lieu of submitting the registration cards to the State Board."
Clearly subsection (1) of KRS 116.075 requires the voter to sign at the time of registration two (2) copies of the voter registration form. The question then is whether or not subsection (3), providing for computerized submission of the data to the State Board of Elections, repeals by implication the necessity of the duplicate form required in subsection (1). Unfortunately, the statute in question has not been amended to resolve this question, and until the legislature does so there appears to be an obvious ambiguity created by the apparent conflict between subsection (1) and subsection (3) of KRS 116.075.
It is a well established principle in the construction of statutes that the court can delete words to resolve an ambiguity in a statute. Fidelity and Columbia Trust Company the Meeks, 294 Ky. 122, 171 S.W.2d 41 (1943). Words may be supplied, omitted, substituted or modified in order to effectuate legislative intent.
Neutzel v. Ryans, 184 Ky. 292, 211 S.W. 852 (1919). Also courts may modify the language of statutes in order to make them consistent.
Green v. Moore, 281 Ky. 305, 135 S.W.2d 682 (1940). It is well to mention that although repeal by implication is not favored by the courts, where relating statutes, or sections thereof, are in effect in conflict and can not be reconciled the latter statute or section enacted, is controlling. In the case at hand, subsection (3) of KRS 116.075 was added in 1982 to the original first and second sections of the statute which became effective in 1974. In this instance, the 1982 amendment essentially changed the registration system but failed to eliminate the use of the two registration cards.
Head v. Commonwealth, 165 Ky. 603, 177 S.W. 731 (1915) and
Commonwealth v. Schindler, Ky. 685 S.W.2d 544 (1985). See also KRS 446.250.
Thus, under the circumstances, we believe that it is possible for the State Board of Elections to eliminate the use of the duplicate voter registration card system. The State Board of Elections may require that only the original of the voter registration card be signed by the voter, and that such original be retained by the county clerks for their alpha files. We further find that in truth and in fact, the present system of duplicate registration cards is a carbon copy system, and that in actuality the voter signs only the original. Further, in practice, all of the information contained on the duplicate registration card is now in fact forwarded to the State Board of Elections via the use of an on-line computer system which was not envisioned by the original statute enacted in 1974, and as amended in 1982 to allow the transmission of that data by sending same directly to the State Board of Elections on computer diskettes or tapes.