Kentucky’s secretary of state admits he pushed ‘absurd’ claims about voter fraud to get elected

Kentucky's secretary of state revealed that he's been lambasted by fellow Republicans for planning to send out instructions on voting by mail.

Secretary of State Michael Adams told NPR that he got his "head taken off" by other Republicans for backing absentee voting, although he realizes that he's partially to blame for public skepticism.

"It's partly on me because I talked about it in my campaign," said Adams, a former staffer for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Vice President Mike Pence. "But it's my job now to calm people's fears."

Adams promised to fight voter fraud during his campaign last year, but he said Kentucky already had safeguards in place -- such as requiring voters to apply for ballots instead of mailing them out the everyone on the rolls -- to protect against fraud, which he said was exceedingly rare except in some local races in small towns.

"People who think that Donald Trump is going to have the election stolen by mail," Adams said, "it's just absurd."

But he's meeting strong resistance from his own party, which opposed his plan to send every registered voter a postcard explaining how to apply for an absentee ballot for the state's June 23 primary.

"The biggest challenge I have right now is making the concept of absentee voting less toxic for Republicans," he said.