What if Kentucky were to elect its governor the same year as the president?

Some state lawmakers think that's a good idea.

Our Clayton Dalton reports on a bill that advanced out of committee today.

Kentucky is one of just five states that holds statewide elections in odd numbered years.

Kentucky elected to governor, lieutenant governor and all constitutional officers in the year preceding the presidential election.

But a new Senate bill in the state General Assembly aims to change that.

This bill, Senate bill ten, moves constitutional elections to even numbered years, starting in 2032.

What this will do is dramatically increase the number of voters who participate in a constitutional election year and also save the Commonwealth nearly $2 million in counties over $15 million.

This would not be the first time the legislature approved moving Kentucky elections in the late 1980s.

Kentucky moved local elections to align with federal elections.

Republicans Jay Williams, who served in the state House and Senate in the nineties, remember passing that legislation.

He says he supports a similar move for statewide elections.

Moving six officers to this even year presidential year.

Is not going to significantly increase the confusion, but it will, I believe, significantly increase, participate.

And the cost savings there major agreement that everybody agreed on was cost savings.

Why do we for six offices go through the entire process of having an election and it just is not cost effective?

It wasn't cost effective for the county offices.

It's not cost effective for just six offices statewide.

Louisville Democrat Kasy Chambers Armstrong was the bill's sole critic.

She cited concerns about nationalizing Kentucky elections.

Nowadays, with national division, with presidential elections lasting four years and eating up the airwaves, I think it's really important that the people of Kentucky have space to focus on Kentucky issues and the issues that impact us here in the Commonwealth.

Some Republicans took the opposite approach, claiming statewide elections coinciding with presidential elections will get Kentuckians involved in the political process.

People are getting less and less interested in our statewide races.

Turnout was down over 8% this year in 2023 than it was in 2019.

They're just not interested.

And I think one way to get them interested is put these races on the ballot when probably 20% more of them are already coming to vote.

What better way to get them focused on state issues than put the races in a year where they are already interested in already coming to vote?

The reality is we need to improve the participation in our democracy.

And Senate Bill ten will do exactly that.

Senate Bill ten passed out of committee by a vote of 7 to 1.

For kentucky edition, I'm clayton Dolan.