National political figures are accusing Kentucky of vote suppression. A bevy of Kentucky-based voices have mobilized more or less to rebut them. The defenses are mostly pretty weak, though, and after seeing the repetition, let's get a dissenting Kentucky voice on record. #kysen

1) "Kentucky's plan was a bipartisan agreement." So what? No one political party has a monopoly on vote suppression, and not all policies that suppress the vote were intended to do so. At the time of that agreement, people thought KY's up-ticket races would already be settled.

2) "Turnout looks as though it's going to be very high by historical standards!" So what? Turnout is rising nationwide. Vote suppression does not mean fewer people vote in one year compared to past years. It means that rules systematically demobilize people who would have voted.

3) "We had mail-in balloting; every mailbox was a potential polling location." Potential, yes. (a) But in practice, not everyone adapts as swiftly to mail-in balloting. It empowers affluent professionals but, at least at first, tends to demobilize resource-poor voters.

3) (b) Research also shows that resource-poor voters are more likely to have their ballots invalidated, the sort of error that might have been caught and fixed when voting in person.

4) "Voters could drop off their ballots early." True, but in other states that set up such drop boxes, a city might have a dozen stations. Even Kentucky's largest counties only had one or two. The greater distance people need to travel, the more potential voters shake loose.

5) "The county's single polling locations will have multiple voting stations." That might help prevent lengthy wait times, but travel distance to the polling station demobilizes potential voters. In urban areas, even half a mile or a mile makes a significant difference.

6) "The need to travel across the city isn't so problematic because bus service will be free." Leaving aside that you're still talking ample travel time, tell me again how having resource-poor voters pile onto a public bus protects people from coronavirus?

In truth, most of the election reforms with which Kentucky is dabbling have had disappointing results nationwide even when implemented ideally. They're not harmful, & adding them can make the system more inclusive, but they're no substitute for Election Day in-person voting.

I'm sympathetic with election officials catching heat right now. I believe they acted in good faith, and if it weren't for Booker's surprise come-from-behind effort in the Senate contest, few would care. But that's no excuse to ignore what science says about election policies.