FRANKFORT, Ky. -  The controversy over whether voters were incorrectly marked “inactive” is no closer to being resolved after a State Board of Elections meeting Tuesday.

The meeting at times got heated, with the board disagreeing with Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes over approximately 175,000 registered voters being moved to the inactive list. The board asserts they are following election law, while Grimes says that’s not the case and a quick search of the voter registration system by her office found potentially thousands of voters who voted as recent as November 2018 were marked as “inactive”.

“This is a problem, the maintenance of an inactive list in contravention of the law, in contravention of our counsels advice and guidance has been done without our knowledge, without my knowledge as Chief Election Official in a system I’m supposed to maintain and oversee and it’s been done quite frankly, for folks who shouldn’t even be on an inactive list,” Grimes told board members. “So setting aside whether this should even be done right or not, we have people in our system right now marked in inactive who should not be marked inactive.”

The board says those mistakes will be corrected before the rosters are sent to the voting precincts for the General Election November 5 and will work to prevent future mistakes. 

“We can come together and do a double-check and maybe implement double checks in the future,” said board member Sherry Rene Whitehouse. “All the board members we can check stuff if we need to help out. We definitely don’t want that appearance out in the public that was out there the last 24-48 hours.”

Kentucky election law allows for voters who have not voted in the past two federal elections to be removed from the voter rolls if they do not respond to a postcard sent to their residence or if the card is returned as undeliverable.

The issue was brought to light on Monday, after the Kentucky Democratic Party sent SBE a letter demanding the nearly 175,000 voters on the “inactive” list be moved back to the active list until it is federally legal to remove them, which would be November 2022.

Board members maintain since voters placed on the inactive list are not purged and therefore still eligible to vote, this is not a case of voter disenfranchisement.

“The most important thing is for everyone to realize that they are still eligible to vote, even if they are on a supplementary list, or a secondary list of some sort, you still have the right to vote,” SBE Chair Josh Branscum. “We’re federally mandated to clean up the rosters and to clean up the lists and that’s the action this board is going to do moving forward.”

But Grimes says this is just the first step in improperly removing voters from the roll.

“Without the proper knowledge of people even realizing they are being marked inactive they could be completely removed from our voter registration list,” Grimes said, “I don’t believe an inactive list should be maintained right now, that’s not what Kentucky law requires. I don’t agree with what the State Board of Elections has done without knowledge of myself as Chief Elections Official.”

During the meeting, the board said the number of voters placed on the inactive list was so high because, under Grimes watch, they had not been able to purge any voters. Grimes disagrees with that assertion saying she has purged 70,000 voters from the rolls as required by a federal consent decree. Grimes says she will take the matter to court if the board does not reverse their actions.

“The remedy I sought today was to reverse course to make sure an inactive list that shouldn’t be maintained right now, we know isn't even accurately even being maintained, be completely reversed course,” Grimes said. “You saw a board that sat on their hands and refused to do anything about it, that’s not acceptable. We’ll go to a court of law and ask for their assistance.”

The board is unsure if they are legally able to remove the voters placed on the inactive list and move them to the general list—or active list.

Grimes maintains much of the confusion with the State Board of Elections is a direct result of a piece of legislation stripping the Secretary of State’s power over the board.

“What we are seeing now is exactly what I theorized would happen and is to the detriment of Kentucky voters,” Grimes said.

SBE’s next meeting is in October.