Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams makes decision on reelection bid

Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams announced Friday he will run for a second term as the state's chief election official next year.

In the press release announcing his run, Adams acknowledged that he considered running for a higher office in Kentucky's statewide elections next year, but ultimately decided to run for another term as secretary of state.

"Based on my performance in this Office, at the most difficult time in its history, I would like to seek a promotion to higher office," Adams stated. "But at this critical time, I am needed at my current post."

Adams' first term has ushered in major changes to Kentucky's voting laws, while his office has significantly purged the registered voting rolls of those who are deceased or moved out of state.

A law requiring a photo ID to vote passed in 2020 with the backing of Adams and Republican legislators, with most Democrats voting against the bill.

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Despite scant evidence of voter fraud through impersonation in Kentucky, Adams advocated for the photo ID law as a tool to increase voter confidence in the integrity of elections, saying he wants to make it "easier to vote and harder to cheat" in the state.

With the calamity of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020, Adams teamed with Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear on an executive order dramatically expanding access to early voting and absentee voting by mail in that year's general election, receiving bipartisan praise. The following year he backed a bill that put into law three days of early voting for the first time.

After many years of little effort by the secretary of state's office to remove dead people or former residents from Kentucky's voting rolls, Adams' office had removed more than 100,000 deceased voters from the rolls as of February.

"No other candidate for Secretary of State could offer this record of accomplishment: expanded voting rights, enhanced election security, restoration of confidence in the Office after years of scandal," Adams stated in his announcement.

Adams also touted "the bipartisan support and confidence I have won, which is all too rare in our politics, but is absolutely necessary for voters across the political spectrum to trust in our elections."

However, Adams is not without his critics, including within his own party — as evidenced by a resolution last week from the Boone County Republican Party censuring him for recently criticizing GOP candidates who filed for longshot recount requests in their May primary losses.

A half-dozen unsuccessful GOP primary candidates from the small-government "liberty" wing of the party filed petitions for official recounts in May. Most of them lost by blowout margins, but suggested their effort was to "check the tech" of voting machines.

Adams criticized several of the recount petitions as "frivolous" and being pushed by "conspiracy theorists" of unfounded election fraud claims, adding that he would back legislation to allow recounts only in close races.

Adams has butted heads in this matter and others with state Sen. Adrienne Southworth, R-Lawrenceburg, whose "Restore Election Integrity" tour across the state over the past year has spread unsubstantiated election fraud conspiracy theories questioning the outcomes of Kentucky 2019 race for governor and the 2020 presidential race, while suggesting Kentucky's voting machines are hooked up to the internet.

The censure resolution of the Boone County GOP — ground zero of the party's liberty wing — accused Adams of "launching a public wave of gratuitous, ad hominem attacks" and making "false, defamatory and gratuitous allegations" against the recount petitioners.

Adams responded to the censure resolution by pointing out that multiple judges have dismissed the recount petitions, as "the Secretary of State and judges know more about election law than the authors of this resolution.”

“I have the most conservative record of any Secretary of State in America," Adams stated. "While they’re passing resolutions, I’m leading, implementing Photo ID to Vote and cleaning up our voter rolls.”

Adams won the Republican primary in 2019 with 41% of the vote in a four-way race, then went on to defeat Democratic nominee Heather French Henry with 52% of the vote in the general election.

Stephen Knipper, who finished third behind Adams in the 2019 GOP primary race, co-hosted the election integrity tour with Southworth and is also considering a run for the office next year.

Many conspiracy theorists pushing unfounded claims about the 2020 presidential election being stolen from Donald Trump have run for secretary of state across the country, with varying success. In Arizona this week, state Rep. Mark Finchem won the GOP nomination, following his campaign of denying the 2020 election results and his endorsement from Trump.

In his reelection bid announcement, Adams said he did not take this race for granted, "nor should anyone who wants fair, free, accessible and secure elections."

"The wrong person winning this position could do real harm to our election process," Adams said.

Reach reporter Joe Sonka at jsonka@courierjournal.com and follow him on Twitter at @joesonka.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams announces reelection bid