Apr 29, 2026 By Mike Jones 2 min read

Election officials in Fayette County began sending out more than 7,000 mail-in ballots Monday ahead of the May 19 primary election.

Elections Director MaryBeth Kuznik said they have exactly 7,100 mail-in ballot requests so far, with 5,255 coming from Democrats and 1,845 applications from Republicans.

She urged people to receive them and return them “ASAP” since they must be received by the elections office no later than 8 p.m. on election day.

“The sooner the better,” she said.

There was a slight delay to the process due to a challenge to Republican state Senate candidate Harry Young Cochran in his race against state Sen. Patrick Stefano, but that was dismissed by the Commonwealth Court before a hearing was even held.

“We had one challenge that got dismissed,” Kuznik said. “So we really weren’t held up with that.”

Another change that election officials had to work on was consolidating some of the precincts in the county, moving from 77 to 66. Kuznik said changing demographics, the difficulty in finding poll workers and the influx of mail-in voting led to the changes, and all affected voters either have or will receive new registration cards with information on their new polling places.

“Some of the smaller communities had a few hundred registered voters. We want to be careful how we use taxpayer resources,” Kuznik said. “So hopefully we’ll be able to provide better service to everyone.”

Mail-in ballots began going out in Greene County late last week, while the ballots from Washington County will start hitting the mail later this week.

The final day to register to vote or change party affiliation is May 4, and the last day to request a mail-in ballot is May 12. The deadline for the ballots to be received by the elections office is at 8 p.m. on May 19.