As elections for several races and issues took place across the U.S. in New York, New Jersey, California, Virginia and other states on Nov. 4, 2025, some people in Kentucky reportedly faced confusion. According to Kentucky’s Secretary of State Michael Adams, some voters in Kentucky purportedly attempted to cast their ballot on that day, even though there were no scheduled elections in the state.
Adams wrote on his official social media accounts: “We’re getting calls about polls being closed. They are closed because we do not have elections today. Kentucky votes next year. You cannot vote today in Kentucky for the mayor of New York City or the Governor of Virginia. Sorry.”
We reached out to the Kentucky secretary of state’s office. Michon Lindstrom, the secretary of state’s spokesperson, told Snopes via phone that the office received calls from voters expressing confusion about why their polling stations were not open on Nov. 4, 2025. The office could not confirm how many calls they received in total, or the number of people who attempted to actually go to the polls and vote.
We were not able to speak to these callers directly, as the office did not provide us with their names and numbers, so we couldn’t independently confirm whether people showed up to vote in an election that was not taking place. We have therefore not put a truth rating on this claim.
Lindstrom said some of the calls the office received came from people who may have attempted to go to their polling station, as they asked, “Why is my polling location closed?”
Lindstrom also told us around 50 phone calls from Kentucky voters were forwarded to the secretary of state’s office before 10 a.m., after which their team moved calls to their in-house customer service provider to inform voters that elections were not taking place that day. She did not have exact numbers of how many people came to them with that query.
Some rumors online claimed Republicans in Kentucky were disappointed they could not vote against New York’s Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani, given that Adams wrote “you cannot vote for the mayor of New York City.”
Lindstrom told Snopes that Adams was just being “tongue in cheek” when mentioning the New York and Virginia races. She added that Kentucky voters’ confusion around the election cycle could be attributed to in-state news coverage about the races in New York, New Jersey and Virginia, leading people to assume that elections were also taking place in Kentucky.
“We are also going to have a competitive senator’s race in 2026,” she added, referring to Republican U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell’s soon-to-be-open seat for which he will not be seeking reelection. His term expires in January 2027, and he announced he would be retiring after holding the seat for four decades. Both Democratic and Republican candidates will be competing for that seat.
“We have been seeing ads on news channels for that [Senate] race. Somebody who is not in tune to politics” might be confused, Lindstrom continued.
Adams also posted in response to his first message about Kentucky voters’ confusion about elections, “Have I mentioned my repeated call for civic education.”
Adams told Kentucky newspaper Lexington Herald-Leader: “In 1992, Kentuckians voted to amend our state constitution to give themselves, and election officials, a year off from elections once every four years. […] In that amendment, local officials elected in 1993 were given a one-year extension to their four-year term, and from 1998 forward they have been elected in midterm elections, along with Congress and the General Assembly, rather than in an odd year.”
Kentucky’s election schedule shows no races in 2025, but the state has gubernatorial and other statewide races in upcoming odd-numbered years: 2027, 2031 and 2035, while federal campaigns for congressional races and the president occur in even-numbered years. State House and Senate races also occur in even-numbered years. No elections will take place in 2029.
We have previously reported on the false claim from the November 2024 presidential elections that Kentucky election officials received reports of ballots marked with a small, black dot inside the checkbox designated for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris — a dot that supposedly invalidated ballots cast for Republican candidate Donald Trump. The Kentucky State Board of Elections denied receiving such pre-marked ballots.
