Abortion amendment left off at least one mail-in ballot in Jefferson County

Jefferson County residents who plan to vote by absentee ballot should check to make sure a constitutional amendment on abortion wasn't left off the reverse side.

The Jefferson County Clerk's office received one report that the amendment did not appear on the mail-in ballot a voter had requested, Erran Huber, communications director for clerk Bobbie Holsclaw, said in an email.

Huber said Constitutional Amendment 2, was apparently left off that voter's ballot because of an error in a printer setting that has been corrected.

He added the office has "not found another instance of this issue or had a report of this issue" after a review of other ballots that had already been returned or not yet distributed.

The ballot measure, if approved, would eliminate any right to abortion from the state constitution.

It is one of the most high-profile items on the Nov. 8 ballot and has sparked a major battle costing millions of dollars between abortion rights supporters and abortion opponents seeking to win over voters.

Opponents, led by the group Protect Kentucky Access, say defeating the amendment would allow the possibility of abortion being declared a state right now that the U.S. Supreme Court has struck it down as a federal right by overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade case.

Supporters, led by "Yes for Life," a coalition of anti-abortion groups, say its passage would ensure abortion is not established as a state right through court challenges to laws that restrict or ban abortion.

Access to abortion, except for a medical emergency, ended in Kentucky after the Supreme Court decision June 24 because Kentucky was among about a dozen states with a "trigger law" to ban it in the event of such a ruling.

The ballot with the missing amendment was first reported Thursday by The Record, the newspaper for the Catholic Archdiocese of Louisville. Kentucky's four Catholic bishops and the Catholic Conference of Kentucky are among supporters of the amendment.

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Jason Hall, executive director of the Catholic conference, said in an email he hopes other ballots are complete.

"I really hope it is a limited problem, and that voters who receive the incomplete ballot realize it in time and are able to cast a vote on Amendment 2," he said.

Jefferson County has 636,981 registered voters and sent out 15,712 mail-in ballots, Huber said.

Michon Lindstrom, a spokeswoman for the Kentucky Secretary of State, said that office had not heard of similar problems in any other counties and it appeared to be "an isolated instance."

Huber said any voter who believes there is a problem with a ballot and wants to replace it should visit or call the Jefferson County Clerk Election Center at 1000 E. Liberty St. by dialing (502) 574-6100.

The ballot will be "spoiled," or discarded, and the voter issued a new one, Huber said. That's what the office did for the voter who reported the missing amendment.

Or voters may simply write in their vote on the amendment and it will be counted following review by a bipartisan election team, he said.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, among opponents of the amendment, also is anxious to ensure all absentee ballots are complete, ACLU Legal Director Corey Shapiro said in an email.

Voters with questions about absentee ballots or any other aspect of the election can call the Election Protection Hotline at 1-866-OUR-VOTE, a coalition or organizations that include Kentuckians for the Commonwealth, the Kentucky Civic Engagement Table and the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky, Shapiro said.

Kentucky's one-sentence amendment proposal states:

"To protect human life, nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to secure or protect a right to abortion or require the funding of abortion."

Contact reporter Deborah Yetter at dyetter@courier-journal.com or on Twitter @d_yetter. Reporter Joe Sonka contributed to this story.

This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Abortion amendment left off a mail-in ballot in Jefferson County