Secretary of State Michael Adams awards Barren County junior Malena Hughes a prize for her essay on automatic voter registration in Kentucky
(JORDAN SMITH/WCLU NEWS)
GLASGOW, Ky. — Kentucky’s Secretary of State Michael Adams visited Barren County High School Friday morning to present a prestigious award to one deserving student.
The annual essay contest allows students to engage in Kentucky’s democratic process, according to the Secretary of State’s website.
This year’s prompt asked “what changed should be made to the state’s election system and why?”. These suggestions were limited to 1,000 words and would not require a constitutional amendment.
“Coming in to the election in 2020, we inherited an election code that was 130 years old,” Adams said. “It had never been substantially revisited and revised. The whole reason we have a legislature is so that, annually, they can come back and assess our laws and keep them up with modernity.”
Kentucky has had the same election laws since 1891.
Malena Hughes, junior, was selected as one of the winner’s for the essay contest with her proposal of modernizing the election system through an implementation of automatic voter registration in Kentucky.
“I chose this topic in order improve not only the turnout in our elections but also the accuracy of our voter registration roles,” Hughes said. “This is something I’m pretty passionate about: increasing voter turnout. And I think easier registration processes would be key in improving that.”
While politics might be a passion of Malena Hughes, she told WCLU News that she plans to continue her education at the University of Kentucky to major in biology or animal science and later attend Auburn University for veterinary school.
