A voter registration drive will be held at Midtown Market in Paducah on Saturday, January 30. The Graves County High School Young Democrats will be sponsoring the event, but everyone, regardless of party affiliation, will be assisted during registration.

Just looking at Kentucky’s registered voters’ party affiliation might convince you that the Democrats “have it easy” in the state, but this isn’t the case. While the Democratic Party does outnumber the Republican Party in Kentucky in amount of registered voters, 52 percent to 39 percent, respectively, Kentucky’s voting pattern shows a clear lack of party loyalty. At the state level, Kentucky voters have elected only two Republican governors in the past 40 years with Democrats having a strong hold on the Kentucky House of Representatives, the executive offices, and, up until 1999, the Kentucky Senate. But when looking at Kentucky’s voting record for national offices a Democratic Presidential candidate hasn’t won Kentucky since Bill Clinton in 1996, the two incumbent U.S. Senators, Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, are Republicans and five of Kentucky’s six representatives to the U.S. House of Representatives are also Republicans. This shows that Kentucky’s “liberals” aren’t that liberal, and that most politicians in Kentucky are conservative regardless of their party which leads people in Kentucky to vote Democrats in for state offices and reject the perceived overly liberal national Democratic Party by voting Republicans in for national offices.

The Republicans are using that perceived overly liberalism of the national Democratic Party against the state Democratic Party. Kentucky Democrats in the past have been always been viewed as conservative leaning, but this hasn’t stopped party-loyal Kentucky Republicans from pouncing on the ability to attack them for an illegible connection to liberal Democratic President Barack Obama. By characterizing the Kentucky Democrats has overly liberal, the Republicans have hurt Kentucky Democrats, and in 2015, Democrats lost the Governorship, only control two of the seven partisan executive offices, and are barely holding on to the House with a majority of 54 to 46.

But another factor is present in the overwhelming about of registered Democrats. Because the Democrats in Kentucky are conservative, many people in Kentucky don’t hesitate to register as Democrats in order to get around the close-poll primary voting rules. I caught up with Cecilia Stapleton, the Vice President of Young Republicans, and someone who I have known for many years as a huge conservative even back in elementary school. She also has considered registering as Democrat.

“Why exactly do you plan to register as a Democrat or even consider it given your past as a reliable Republican and your current position as Vice President of Young Republicans?”

“I’ve always been a Republican and have known I would vote Republican, but here in Graves not many Republicans run for local office and many Democrats are conservative leaning. By registering as a Democrat in Graves County I’ll definitely be able to vote in any election. I’m proud to be a Republican and as Vice President of the club I’d love to be able to register as a Republican, but I’d also like to exercise my right to vote, and by registering as a Democrat, I’ll be able to do so.”

Ms. Stapleton is referring to the inability of Republicans to vote in Democratic primaries because of close-poll voting, and with many conservative politicians in Graves County still running as Democrats, this creates a problem.

“So you want to register as a Democrat to be able to vote in the primaries because the Democrats aren’t really that liberal here? Here Democrats are not nearly as liberal as they are in states like California or New York, so by registering as a Democrat in Graves County, yes, I’ll be able to vote in the Primaries for any candidate of my choosing, because most people in Graves don’t run as a Republican.”

The Young Democrats are hoping to reverse the Republican voting tide going into the 2016 election. In the last election only 31 percent of eligible voters showed up to the polls. Many people in the state failed to register in time and when the general elections come, they were barred from voting. The Young Democrats came up with the idea to get more people to vote, to make sure people register in time, and hopefully for more Democrats to vote in 2016. Emily Cornwell, Vice President of Young Democrats said, “There’s a trend that people who support more liberal candidates are less likely to actually vote, so I think the goal is to identify those people, stress the importance of voting, and get them to commit to getting to their polling location on election day.” Ms. Cornwell is correct, and there is strong evidence to support her claim. In 2007 a national study by Jan Leighley and Jonathan Nagler found that across the entire country nonvoters are more economically liberal than voters. Nonvoters were more likely to supporting Obamacare, workers’ unions, and an increased federal education budget. Nonvoters are also far less likely to identify as Republican, and voters tend to be more opposed to the redistribution of wealth than nonvoters.