Danny Whitacre: Why I’m running for Kenton Co. Clerk
Article on LINK Media, by Danny Whitacre, May 3, 2022
Seth Keshel posted this today and it lifted me up and touched my heart. This man, Danny Whitacre, speaks for so many of us. Sadly, he passed away from cancer last month.
We cannot vote for him but he is a true patriot and renews our strength in each other and what we can do and what we are doing.
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The following op-ed is written by Danny Whitacre, a candidate in the Republican primary for Kenton Co. Clerk
Had you asked me a year ago if I would ever enter a political race, I would have emphatically replied, “Never!” After trying to understand why Kenton County ranks as the 62nd most-corrupt county in the USA regarding the 2020 Election and being blocked by the current clerk, I had to step out of my comfort zone and enter the race.
I am Danny Whitacre, candidate for Kenton County Clerk, and assure you that I am not in this race for myself. I would rather continue my entrepreneurial work aimed at creating a $100 million enterprise. I seek the Kenton County Clerk’s office because I feel the direction of the incumbent is wrong. While she doubles down on Voting Centers and Voting Machines, I would take the county back to its neighborhoods and the tried-and-trusted form of voting and counting votes. Kentucky statutes mandate in-precinct voting. Voting Machines will never be safe or secure, which is why Europe banned them decades ago.
I grew up in Newport, played high school sports, took college prep classes, and joined the US Army immediately after graduation. After my service in the 82nd Airborne and 1st Psychological Operations Group, I went to NKU and graduated with honors. After successfully working as a High-Tech Recruiter, Recruiting Manager, and learning nearly every aspect of IT, I asked my boss, “Why can’t our project managers bring work in on time and under budget?” He pushed it right back and said, “Try it!” so I became a Project Manager.
One of my core values is life-long learning, so I studied and achieved the Master of Design Thinking from MIT’s Sloan School of Management, among other certifications (That just means I know how to design and build human-centered solutions).
Personally, my wife and I reside in Fort Wright. We love God, family, and country. As you can imagine, freedom is high on our list of values. Our freedom is at risk if we cannot hire and fire our representatives. We depend on voting to provide outcomes that match the will of the people. When that is threatened, we, as a society, have lost our way.
The key to living in a non-violent society is trust in elections. I have no trust that Kenton County has an election system that would stand the scrutiny of a Forensic Audit. In fact, I cannot believe the state of our county’s voter registration rolls. Today, our Clerk claims we have 142,154 registered voters, but our county has only 129,000 people eligible to vote (18+ years old). Notably, the US Census Bureau asserts the highest registration percentages are around 70% of the voting eligible population. If I win, I will fix that problem as well as others, in one term.
While my focus will be on restoring Election Integrity, I know the Clerk must renew license plates, collect taxes, issue marriage licenses, and record deeds – and I am aware that 35 people on the team do that now. I will tweak things as needed to better serve the residents and promise to make this office a place of transparency, precision, and efficiency!
All my skills, training, and decades of private-sector experience, make me a great candidate for County Clerk. My claim to fame is that I build highly productive teams who are happy in their work. It will take some time to adjust to new leadership, culture and demands, but I assure you, the County Clerk’s office will run better, faster, and cheaper when I am at the helm. Since I am a one-term candidate, I will even work with the team towards the succession of the Clerk’s role.
We the People will have a voice in the Clerk’s office. Today, if I submit an Open Records Request, I will hear myriad reasons why I, as a private citizen, cannot see the records or that the records will need to be redacted (blanked out), taking weeks to deliver. When I run the Clerk’s office, it will become the most transparent Clerk’s office in the country. I believe in radical transparency. If you want to know what’s going on in the Clerk’s office, you will be invited to view the facts and archives.
Throughout history, elected persons have taken greater and greater liberties with their power. They put their hands on the scales to achieve their ends. The incumbent has been in office 12 years and received a $10,000 raise last year bringing her annual salary to $133,000. Of course, like most politicians, she will never leave on her own; she may even feel she has a lifetime appointment.
Unless we step out of our comfort zone, choose to be courageous, and vote in HUGE numbers, she may in fact never leave. I stepped up for you more than for me. I choose to be on the side of stopping the ever-expanding overreach of politicians who will not go back home once elected. I passionately choose to be part of the fight to restore confidence to elections. The people of Kenton County deserve change, not a politician. We can never know the real facts about what shenanigans are going on in the Clerk’s office until we get someone else in. I am that person, IF you step up. Seth Keshel, renowned election integrity expert, says, “If not you, then who? If not now, then when?” Step up with me on May 17th please! Learn more at dannywhitacre.com.
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