The Christian County Clerk’s office is investigating several complaints from local workers who claim they were penalized by their employers for leaving work to vote.
State law says companies or employers cannot punish workers for taking a reasonable amount of time off to cast their ballot.
County Clerk Mike Kem presented the complaints to the grand jury this morning to see if legal action was warranted.
Kem says the office received four anonymous complaints on election day from workers mostly in the Hopkinsville industrial park area. He says that one worker was informed by her employer they would work longer hours on election day without time off to go vote. Kem says if this is true, then the employer acted illegally.
“You have to start with the company, it’s whoever sets the hours for the employees to work," said Kem. "Evidently they don’t usually work the 12 hour shifts and just all of a sudden they were going to work a 12 hour shift, so that kind of put the employee at a disadvantage. Their options are: they could vote and get written up or they could not vote, both ways the employer is responsible.”
Kem says that some of the employees were given infractions for leaving work and could be fired after receiving a certain number.
Kem says there isn’t a set penalty for employers that prohibit workers from voting, which is why he consulted the grand jury.
He says the grand jury now has 30 days to decide whether or not to take legal action against the companies in question.
