Voting rights advocates say a plan that would allow Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul to skirt a state law prohibiting candidates from appearing twice on a ballot could cause problems for absentee voters.
The state GOP has given preliminary approval to a plan to switch from a primary to a caucus in 2016.
Caucuses consist of sequential rounds of in-person voting that eliminate candidates until there is a winner.
Grace Ramsey with the Maryland-based group Fair Votes says this method of voting could leave out those who can’t be there in person, if there aren’t proper procedures in place.
“So, we definitely recommend that for military and overseas voters that if there is going to be a caucus process, which it sounds like there is going to be, to send them ranked ballots and allow them to send those back in so that we have an idea of what they would do were they able to be there in person,” said Ramsey.
A final vote on the proposed rules for the caucus will go before Kentucky GOP officials in late summer.
