This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Tuesday, March 24th, 2020.

I'm Caleb Brown.

Election days are very likely moments when COVID-19 could spread widely,

especially among the likeliest of voters, older Americans.

So how best to handle this potential problem?

Kentucky is among the states that have delayed primaries.

Republican Michael Adams is Kentucky's Secretary of State.

We spoke yesterday about some of the technical challenges states are facing in trying to assure

a smooth election.

You were just elected in November to this office and immediately this COVID-19 begins spreading across the United States.

You requested that the governor Andy Bashir delay the election by five weeks.

He granted that request.

What changes between now and then well the short answer is we'll see

my rationale for for requesting a five week delay of the election as permitted by law was for two reasons.

One was to basically give us a reset and allow us to monitor the situation and see if a normal election will work a normal

election being one that's conducted largely in person on average in a Kentucky

election 98% of voters vote on election day only 2% vote absentee. So my hope is as we

monitor the situation the things will get back to normal in advance of June

23rd our new primary election date. The other option is this allows

us to prepare and take steps in case the situation doesn't resolve itself, in which case we'll see a more aggressive use of

absentee balloting and probably some exercise of our ability to alter procedures for in-person voting under the law.

Is there a precedent for this nationally? I know you're a student of

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