Where voters dare

Final tallies likely days away for top races in Kentucky, N.Y.

Voters in Kentucky’s primary election cast their ballots Tuesday at a central voting site in an exposition center in Louisville after neighborhood precincts were closed because of the coronavirus. Long waits were reported, and mail-in ballots clogged vote counting in Kentucky and New York, with election results likely to take days. More photos at arkansasonline.com/624primary/.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Voters endured 90-minute waits in Kentucky’s second-largest city, but the biggest hurdle in Tuesday’s congressional primaries seemed to be what wasn’t happening: quick counting of mailin ballots in that state and New York. Final results in top races seemed unlikely for days.

First-term state legislator Charles Booker was hoping a late surge would carry him past former Marine fighter pilot Amy McGrath for the Democratic Senate nomination from Kentucky. And in New York, political newcomer Jamaal Bowman was seeking to derail House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Eliot Engel’s bid for a 17th term in Congress.

Majority Leader Mitch Mc- Connell of Kentucky easily won the Republican nomination for a seventh Senate term Tuesday and will be favored in November against McGrath or Booker.

In Virginia, retired Army Col. Daniel Gade won the GOP nomination to challenge Democratic Sen. Mark Warner, who seems certain of reelection. Republican Scott Taylor will face Rep. Elaine Luria, D-Va., in a rematch between two Navy veterans in a Virginia Beach district from which she toppled him two years ago.

And Cameron Webb, a health policy researcher, won the Democratic nomination for a central Virginia House district. GOP incumbent Rep. Denver Riggleman lost his party’s nomination for the seat, fueling Democrats’ hopes that Webb, an African-American, can capture it.

Joe Biden won Democratic presidential primaries in New York and Kentucky, and President Donald Trump claimed victory in Kentucky. New York canceled its Republican presidential primary in March and awarded Trump all of the state’s delegates.

As states ease voting by mail because of the coronavirus pandemic, a deluge of mail-in ballots and glacially slow counting procedures meant many final results would take days or more. That torturous wait seemed a preview of November, when numerous states will turn to mail-in voting like never before. Officials are already warning that uncertainty over who the next president is could linger for days.

By late afternoon, there were scattered reports of long lines and absentee ballots that voters never received. Yet voting appeared less troubled than recent elections in Georgia and Nevada, where some people stood in line for hours.

Waits lasting 90 minutes were reported Tuesday morning at the lone voting site in Lexington, Ky., — Kroger Field, the University of Kentucky’s football stadium.

“This is definitely the longest that I’ve ever waited,” said 55-year-old Bob Woods, who took over an hour to check in.

In Louisville, voting advocates complained that an unknown number of people stayed home because it was difficult to travel to the state’s largest city’s one polling place — the Kentucky Exposition Center.

“In my neighborhood, most people don’t have cars,” said voter Michael Baker. “It’s not fair for them to have one site.”

A judge kept the polling place open an extra half hour after about 175 people, some of whom pounded on the building’s doors, demanded to vote. Louisville has 600,000 residents.

There were so many mailin ballots that Kentucky’s two biggest counties, Jefferson and Fayette, weren’t planning to release results on election night, said Secretary of State Michael Adams.

Kentucky’s voting is usually 2% by mail. This year officials expect that figure to exceed 50%, and more 400,000 mail ballots were returned by Sunday. All received by June 27 will be counted.

New York state Attorney General Letitia James’ office received about 150 complaints by midafternoon, mainly about voters not getting absentee ballots they’d requested, polling sites opening late and voters receiving incomplete ballots.

Dena Cooper said she applied months ago for an absentee ballot that never arrived, so she went to her polling place in Brooklyn’s Bay Ridge to vote in person. She said a poll worker told her to go home and wait for the absentee ballot to arrive.

“I feel turned away,” Cooper said. New York voters who have requested but not used absentee ballots can legally vote in person.

New York officials expect the vast majority of votes to be mail ballots this year, compared with their typical 5% share. Counties have until eight days after election day to count and release the results of mail ballots, with 1.7 million requested by voters.

There was also one Republican House runoff each in North Carolina and Mississippi.