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<br /> Travelling around the wonderland that is India is a thrilling experience, especially when fast-moving super <keyword id="168020" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="expressways">expressways</keyword> are right here to ensure some wonderful on-the-road vacations. Of course there are business travellers who are in a hurry to reach their destinations and <keyword id="2053038" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Super-fast-expressways">super fast expressways</keyword> minus traffic snarls suit them down to the ground. But then, you can be one of those away on a leisure trip and looking forward to a fast and panoramic drive on your way to a new city. Either way, the expressways of India won’t disappoint you. As we mentioned before, expressways are controlled-access highways like the freeways or motorways or autobahnen in the US and Europe, essentially designed for high-speed traffic. As of now, most of the expressways in India are 6-8 lane toll <keyword id="6358996" type="PERSON" weightage="100" keywordseo="roads">roads</keyword> and cover a total distance of nearly 1,208.19 km.<br />
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Last month, we brought you <strong><a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/8-Super-ExpresswaysIn-North-India-That-Fulfil-Your-Need-For-Speed/articleshow/29486214.cms">8 super expressways</a></strong> in North India that fulfil your need for speed. And this time, we move to the West and the North-west of the country where some more picturesque drives await us. However, the <keyword id="52840" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="sea-links">sea links</keyword> and the <keyword id="2053055" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Coastal-expressways">coastal expressways</keyword> will come up in our next article. So grab a coffee, get a map and read on. By the time you are through, you could be checking the map and picking out the spots where you want to go first. As the Turkish playwright <keyword id="1981629" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Mehmet-Murat">Mehmet Murat</keyword> ildan has said: Some roads are so beautiful that you know not whether you travel on the road or the road travels in you!<br />
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<strong>Image:</strong> Thinkstock Photos/Getty Images

Open Roads Return: 6 Super
Expressways In West & North-west India

<br /> With so many highway movies doing the rounds, sojourning from city to city and state to state feels like a romantic prelude to a long <keyword id="6374782" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="journey">journey</keyword> of self-discovery – till reality strikes. And just like a movie, the reality can be multilayered – varying from bad roads to gasping traffic and minimal road safety. But we promised you relief from those travelling conditions the next time we return with our <strong><keyword id="2053047" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Open-roads">Open Roads</keyword></strong> series. And here we are, with more information about a whole new bunch of <keyword id="2074695" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Intracity-and-inter-city-expressways">intracity and inter-city expressways</keyword> that not only reduce <keyword id="4251245" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Commute-time">commute time</keyword> but also reshape a country’s landscape, <keyword id="34412" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="economy">economy</keyword> and way of life. In the last slideshow of this series, the journey begins from the <keyword id="44875" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="West-coast">west coast</keyword> and goes down south.<br />
<br /> As we have mentioned before, expressways are limited-access roads designed for high-speed traffic. The economic impact of an <keyword id="2074705" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Expressway-network">expressway network</keyword> criss-crossing the country is all too obvious and the <keyword id="6404450" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="Ministry-of-Road-Transport-and-Highways">Ministry of Road Transport and Highways</keyword> (MoRTH) has already recommended a total <keyword id="2074707" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="E-way-network">e-way network</keyword> of about 18,637 km in the country. Development work is being done in three phases and is scheduled to be completed by 2022. During the Interim Budget, <keyword id="6355261" type="POSITION" weightage="60" keywordseo="Finance-minister">Finance Minister</keyword> <keyword id="43940" type="PERSON" weightage="60" keywordseo="P-Chidambaram">P Chidambaram</keyword> also told the Parliament the road network in the country witnessed over sevenfold increase at 3.89 lakh km over the past decade.<br />
<br /> Does that mean we may soon see an <keyword id="2074709" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="E-way-ecosystem">e-way ecosystem</keyword> similar to the interstate system in the US? Given the obstacles in terms of <keyword id="6364579" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Land-acquisition">land acquisition</keyword>, <keyword id="414903" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="fund-crunch">fund crunch</keyword> and <keyword id="2074714" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Slow-implementation">slow implementation</keyword>, it’s definitely going to take some time. Meanwhile, hop into the driver’s seat and go off exploring some super-fast roads you have not travelled yet. After all, it’s a journey with no end… and wheels will always need roads.<br />
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<strong>Image:</strong> Thinkstock Photos/Getty Images

Be It Intracity Or
Inter-city, These 5 Expressways Make Travelling A Breeze

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Even in this age of jet travel and space tourism, highways hold an irresistible charm for travellers out to have an up, close and personal experience of the wide roads stretching ahead for miles, uninterrupted views of a breathtaking landscape, the occasional flyways and the not-so-familiar villages and towns rushing by. It’s even better than chugging along the countryside in a train. You can stop any time you want – to sample some chatpati chaat and a steaming cuppa of <em>chai</em> at a roadside <em>dhaba</em>; to talk to people; to take a dekko at local interests or simply laze an hour or two in shine or rain with the greens around you and the fresh smell of soil floating in the air.<br />
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Now that our <strong><a href="http://www.businessinsider.in/Chugging-Up-7-Mesmerising-Mountain-Train-RidesIn-India/articleshow/24288850.cms">train series</a></strong> is over (but we promise to bring you more as soon as new and exotic routes come up), we are back with a more exciting roadmap of <keyword id="168020" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="expressways">expressways</keyword> that criss-cross the entire country, connecting the four metros and many of the Tier I cities, and going much beyond the urban landscape. Infrastructure development in India has undergone a sea change over the past few years and the country currently boasts the <keyword id="2034191" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Second-largest-road-network">second largest road network</keyword> in the world, with a road length of over 4,689,842 km, as per 2013 data from the <keyword id="6404450" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="Ministry-of-Road-Transport-and-Highways">Ministry of Road Transport and Highways</keyword>.<br />
<br /> Starting from FY2012-13, the <keyword id="44734" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="80" keywordseo="Indian-Government">Indian government</keyword> will be also putting $17 billion over the next five years, being sourced through public-private partnership (<keyword id="6361580" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="PPP">PPP</keyword>) road projects. This will be used by the <keyword id="87432" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="National-Highways-Authority-of-India">National Highways Authority of India</keyword> (<keyword id="49448" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="nhai">NHAI</keyword>) for the planned series of <keyword id="174913" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="BOT">BOT</keyword> (build, operate and transfer) highways. In spite of several bottlenecks, the NHAI has set up impressive targets and aims to develop 20 km/day, in a bid to fast-track the country’s <keyword id="2034194" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="Road-network-expansion">road network expansion</keyword>.<br />
<br /> As of July 2013, <keyword id="6373156" type="ORGANIZATION" weightage="100" keywordseo="National-Highways">national highways</keyword> account for 79,116 km, connecting all major cities and state capitals. Expressways, however, differ a bit in the sense they are controlled-access highways like the <keyword id="610047" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="freeways">freeways</keyword> or <keyword id="1333990" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="motorways">motorways</keyword> or autobahnen in the US and Europe, essentially designed for high-speed traffic. As of now, most of the expressways in India are 6-8 lane <keyword id="120837" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="toll-roads">toll roads</keyword> and cover a total distance of nearly 1,208.19 km. India expects to add another 3,530 km of expressways by 2014 as projects under construction get completed. Another massive programme is also under way to expand the network and the Indian government plans to add an additional 18,637 km of expressways by 2022.<br />
<br /> So are you ready to emerge on another breath-taking <keyword id="6374782" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="80" keywordseo="journey">journey</keyword> with us, literally a journey of thousand miles and more? We will bring you the super expressways zone-wise – so that you know which route to choose when travelling North or South, East or West. And it will be a beautiful journey as art and cultural critic <keyword id="2034192" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Dave-Hickey">Dave Hickey</keyword> so rightly said – Beauty is and always will be blue skies and open highway.<br />
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<strong>Image:</strong> Wikimedia Commons

8 Super Expressways
In North India That Fulfil Your Need For Speed

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><ul><li><strong>A 35-year-old Norwegian etched his name into the history books on Thursday.</strong></li><li><strong>Aksel Lund Svindal won gold in the downhill event and became the oldest Olympic alpine skiing champion of all time.</strong></li><li><strong>At one point, Svindal accelerated to 125 km/ hour - a speed that would have resulted in a fine had he travelled that fast on the South Korean expressways.</strong></li><li><strong>The only problem is that the police would first have to catch him.</strong></li></ul><p>&#xa0;</p><p>Norwegian athlete Aksel Lund Svindal just became the oldest Olympic alpine skiing champion ever at 35 years old.</p><p>Svindal was seventh out of the gate in the men's downhill event on Thursday and quickly picked up a blistering speed once he got going down the mountain.</p><p>With a finish time of 1 minute and 40.25 seconds, he was the fastest to cross the line.</p><p>Downhill skiing is one of the five forms of alpine skiing at the 2018 Winter Olympics.</p><p>Slalom, giant slalom, super giant slalom, and combined all emphasise skills such as turning and technique, but it is speed that's essential in downhill skiing.</p><p>Svindal, for instance, accelerated to 125 km/hour during his gold medal-winning run.</p><p>This hair-raising speed would have resulted in a fine had he travelled that fast by car through South Korea, where the maximum speed allowed on the expressways is 120 km/hour.</p><p><strong>You can watch Svindal's history-making run right here:</strong></p><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div><div></div>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/vince-stephanie-shane-mcmahon-wwe-successor-triple-h-jim-ross-wrestling-2018-1">JIM ROSS: Here's who will take over WWE after Vince McMahon</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div></hr>

A 35-year-old Norwegian just became the oldest Olympic ski champion ever - and his run was so fast it would break the South Korean speed limit

<ul class="summary-list"><li>This week, <keyword id="92555" type="CITY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Kentucky">Kentucky</keyword> showed how officials, with the right planning and coordination, can run a largely successful election with high turnout during the COVID-19 pandemic. </li><li>In the days before, dozens of prominent national figures with millions of followers on social media charged that Kentucky was committing voter suppression by having far fewer polling places than normal.</li><li>Much of the national commentary raised alarms over only one physical in-person vote center in Jefferson County, which has over 600,000 registered voters, and accused the state of voter suppression. </li><li>The reality, however, was much more nuanced. Thanks to Kentucky massively expanding access to absentee and early voting, the state saw record turnout and not the hours-long lines across the state that many predicted. </li><li>An election scholar called for the state to delay implementating a law that requires voters to bring a photo ID to the polls, saying this "would truly lead to voter suppression."</li></ul><p>All <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AllEyesOnKentucky?src=hashtag_click">eyes were on Kentucky</a> as it held in-person voting for its June 23 presidential and congressional primary elections after a weekend of influential figures claiming the state's leaders committing nefarious voter suppression.</p><p>In-person voting wasn't perfect, and there were <a href="https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/elections/kentucky/2020/06/23/kentucky-primary-election-day-marked-covid-19-suppression-claims/3244169001/">some logistical hiccups.</a> But thanks to a number of measures top officials implemented to make voting easier, Kentucky surpassed expectations and saw record turnout. </p><p>While there are still absentee ballots left to be counted, Kentucky <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kentucky-primary-election-turnout-historic/">is on track to smash its previous voter turnout record for a primary</a> election set in the 2008 primary election, where 922,000 voters cast ballots. As of Friday morning, 731,505 absentee ballots had been returned, making up 84% of those sent to voters, in addition to over 271,000 who voted in person, the <a href="https://twitter.com/Mirandacombs27/status/1276582046245232642">Kentucky Secretary of State's office</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/joesonka/status/1276545384345632769">Louisville Courier-Journal reported.</a></p><p>Before the election, a number of prominent celebrities and athletes including <a href="https://twitter.com/ava/status/1274397444747309057">Ava Duvernay</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/TheEllenShow/status/1275147792336523264">Ellen Degeneres</a>, and <a href="https://twitter.com/JLawrence_RepUs/status/1275130487778893825">Jennifer Lawrence</a>, athletes like <a href="https://twitter.com/KingJames/status/1274392626930704384">LeBron James</a>, and national political figures including <a href="https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/1275088983685566466">Hillary Clinton</a>, former Mayor <a href="https://twitter.com/PeteButtigieg/status/1275095889657376768">Pete Buttigieg</a>, and Sen. <a href="https://twitter.com/amyklobuchar/status/1274856741784748033">Amy Klobuchar</a> took to social media to accuse Kentucky of using the COVID-19 pandemic to engage in racist voter suppression by slashing in-person places from the usual 3,700 per election to just 200. </p><p>In particular, national figures and commentators <a href="https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/2020/06/22/kentucky-officials-refute-primary-voter-suppression-claims/3239149001/">seized on the statistic </a>that on election day there would be just one in-person vote center in Jefferson County, <a href="https://elect.ky.gov/Resources/Documents/voterstatscounty-20200604-144817.pdf">which has over 600,000 registered voters</a> and is home to half the state's Black citizens. </p><p>While that fact <a href="https://wfpl.org/national-figures-warn-of-kentucky-voter-suppression/">caught fire on the Internet and fed accusations of suppression</a>, many of the posts expressing concern didn't reflect the steps officials took to expand voting options and avoid the disaster scenario many predicted.</p><p>"The reality on the ground on Tuesday was pretty good," University of Kentucky law professor and election scholar Josh Douglas concluded in a <a href="https://www.kentucky.com/opinion/op-ed/article243786922.html">Thursday op-ed for the Lexington Herald-Leader</a>. "Not perfect. Not ideal. But overall, the election was a qualified success."</p><p>Beth Thorpe, a Democratic strategist and communications chairwoman for the Louisville Democratic Party, told Insider in a Thursday interview that everyone involved in Tuesday's elections worked incredibly hard to make it a success.</p><p>She said that the outcry over voter suppression was due to a combination of the high interest in the competitive <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/amy-mcgrath-vs-charles-booker-kentucky-primary-live-results-updates-2020-6">Democratic primary for US Senate between Amy McGrath and Charles Booker</a>, and heightened national concern over voter disenfranchisement in the wake of <a href="https://www.11alive.com/article/news/politics/georgia-voting-issues-reported-around-atlata/85-f4af86da-76b4-4fd0-8c87-43e7fd3e7d94?utm_campaign=snd-autopilot">Georgia's disastrous June 9 election. </a></p><p>"Don't get me wrong, I love the fact that people are interested in our election," she said. "And everyone wanted to come to our rescue. And I get why they did it, because we've seen some really bad things happen. But I think it goes to show that if there's a vacuum of information, and it's not clear who's doing the messaging...and you can get a story out that you can't get a handle on."</p><p><div type="image" title="FILE - In this Feb. 19, 2020 file photo Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear speaks to the press at the Capitol in Frankfort, Ky. Beshear says protesters who hung an effigy of him were trying to use “fear and terror&quot; to force their will on others. The Democratic governor on Tuesday, May 26, 2020 referred to the protesters as a mob. He said he won't back down as he condemned the rally that spread to where his children play at the Governor’s Mansion. (AP Photo/Bryan Woolston)" height="2552" width="5103" msid="76653414" hostid="261"></div></p><h2>Top officials worked across the aisle to expand mail-in and early voting</h2><p>Like most states who have held elections in the coronavirus era, Kentucky experienced a shortage of available poll-workers willing to work at in-person and had to significantly cut down polling places as a result. In most states, poll-workers <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/04/06/older-people-account-for-large-shares-of-poll-workers-and-voters-in-u-s-general-elections/">are older retirees who are especially vulnerable to contracting COVID-19. </a></p><p>In anticipation of the lack of poll workers, Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear and Kentucky's top election official, Republican Secretary of State Michael Adams <a href="https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/2020/04/24/coronavirus-kentucky-mail-voting-allowed-2020-primaries/3019216001/">struck a bipartisan agreement</a> to allow voters to vote absentee and vote early in-person without an excuse for June's election. Previously, Kentucky had extremely limited early voting and required voters to have an excuse in order to do either.</p><p>Shortly after becoming Governor, Beshear <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/12/us/kentucky-felons-voting-rights.html">also signed an executive order</a> allowing hundreds of thousands of people with felony convictions who were previously disenfranchised to vote.</p><p>In Jefferson County, the site of the single polling location, over 222,000 voters had either requested absentee ballots or voted early by Monday,<a href="https://twitter.com/joesonka/status/1274742757739966464"> according to Louisville Courier-Journal reporter Joe Sonka.</a></p><p>Another important detail that was lost in the fray was that "one polling place" wasn't the size of the typical high school gym, church basement, or American Legion hall most Americans are used to voting in.</p><p>Several separate polling places were located inside the Kentucky Exposition Center, an enormous 1.3 million square foot convention center on the site of the state's fairgrounds. The design of the center <a href="https://forwardky.com/would-everyone-please-get-the-louisville-voting-story-straight/?fbclid=IwAR1JP7wheRvdZuSKsU5flZov-h3HJCD64mCxMEJmwM9CDzuVfje7DfcGaSw">allowed for there to be 18 separate lines to vote</a>, hundreds of individual voting booths, and multiple entrances and exits to enable social distancing. </p><p>Over the weekend, <a href="https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/2020/06/22/kentucky-officials-refute-primary-voter-suppression-claims/3239149001/">local reporters and experts</a>, including Douglas, Sonka, and <a href="https://twitter.com/phillipmbailey/status/1275057288408154114">many of his colleagues</a>, spent considerable time <a href="https://twitter.com/JoshuaADouglas/status/1274881770203144194?s=20">adding legal context</a> and <a href="https://twitter.com/joesonka/status/1274742757739966464">breaking down the absentee and early voting numbers to explain</a> that no, 600,000 voters would not be crowded into one tiny polling location. (Sonka began responding to misleading tweets about Kentucky's election <a href="https://twitter.com/joesonka/status/1274877463739465729">with GIFs of David Rose</a>, the oft-exasperated character in<a href="https://www.insider.com/schitts-creek-how-show-ends-where-characters-end-up"> the Canadian sitcom <em>Schitt's Creek</em>)</a>. </p><p>Very few of the posts celebrities and national figures with major social media followings who expressed concern about the dearth of polling locations included a similar level of context.</p><p>"We've had mail-in voting for the first time in our history... we've had no-excuse early voting for the first time in our history...we've had 175,000 people have their voting rights restored, which I think is the opposite of voter suppression," Beshear <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yMbAUMXhNng">said at a Monday press conference</a> when asked to respond to the criticism on social media. "That doesn't fit in Twitter very easily, and I get that."</p><p>Despite the fears of suppression and hours-long lines in Louisville, in-person voting on election day mostly went smoothly at the Exposition Center, <a href="https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/elections/kentucky/2020/06/23/kentucky-primary-election-day-marked-covid-19-suppression-claims/3244169001/">local outlets including the Courier-Journal reported.</a></p><p>"The voting inside was fabulous. It was huge, it had tons of room, it had big exhibition halls, super airy, lots of space," Thorpe said of the Expo Center. "They were really able to keep their little desks separate."</p><p>But while the size and scale of the Expo Center precluded the onerously long waits and lines that some predicted, the single location created different logistical difficulties, including traffic on the expressway on the way to the area and a somewhat confusing parking system, with Thorpe describing it as a "convoluted place to get in." </p><p>And towards the end of the voting day, <a href="https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/politics/elections/kentucky/2020/06/23/kentucky-primary-election-day-marked-covid-19-suppression-claims/3244169001/">a dramatic scene unfolded</a> when voters rushed to the Expo Center to get into a line inside the buildings before polls closed at 6 p.m.</p><p>Officials shut the door to people trying to get into the building, <a href="https://twitter.com/MattMencarini/status/1275553628804329472">creating a harrowing scenario of voters banging on the doors of the center</a> hoping to get in. A last-minute injunction from a state judge in response to an emergency motion from Booker's campaign <a href="https://twitter.com/dctello/status/1275581285776461826">extended voting to 6:30 p.m.</a></p><p>"The rules were not made to scale up to the system," said Thorpe, who was present at the Exposition Center at 6 p.m., and tried to help people who were parking get into the building as fast as possible. "We all ran as fast as we can yelling to people how much time they had to get inside. It was pretty intense. I'm still not quite over it, to be honest."</p><p>Voters also experienced somewhat longer lines <a href="https://twitter.com/JoshuaADouglas/status/1275544792152322049">in Kentucky's second-largest city of Lexington</a>, where the city's main polling location had less capacity to efficiently check in dozens of voters at a time, <a href="https://twitter.com/drdesrochers/status/1275466986512932865">creating a bottleneck at the check-in desk. </a></p><p>Adams celebrated the overall success of Tuesday's election <a href="https://kentucky.gov/Pages/Activity-stream.aspx?n=SOS&amp;prId=324=324">in a Wednesday statement</a>, calling on "vacuous celebrities" including "persons of supposed stature like Hillary Clinton, who clearly know better" to apologize for lobbing accusations of voter suppression. (After her initial tweet <a href="https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/1275088983685566466">claiming voter suppression</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/HillaryClinton/status/1275507148479434759">Clinton later changed her tune</a> and posted a tweet praising Beshear, but not Adams, for Kentucky expanding no-excuse absentee and early voting).</p><p>"While in so many categories Kentucky remains near the bottom, today Kentucky is first in something – conducting elections, even under extreme circumstances, and exhibiting grace under pressure," he said while decrying "certain people" outside the state who "aggressively pushed a false, culturally bigoted narrative that paints Kentucky as a racist backwater."</p><p><div type="image" title="Kentucky voting.JPG" height="1000" width="2000" msid="76653416" hostid="261"></div></p><h2>Kentucky's experience reveals important lessons for November</h2><p>Despite the overall success of Kentucky's election and the record turnout, local officials and experts note that Kentucky's election revealed some of the problems states around the country will have to address by November. </p><p>"Today's primary election went remarkably smoothly for most who made it to the polls but certainly not for all," Richard Beliles, the Board Chairman of Common Cause Kentucky, a non-partisan grassroots organization, said in a statement. "And we don't know how many never made it to the polls in the first place."</p><p>Thorpe emphasized that all the election officials in the state did excellent work under difficult circumstances, and highlighted important areas for improvement. </p><p>In addition to the shortage of poll-workers, Thorpe said that officials should take steps to streamline and centralize communication around election policies, conduct more outreach on social media to educate voters unfamiliar with the process on how to vote absentee, and iron out logistical problems at polling places, like parking and access for voters with disabilities. </p><p>"People often think that voter suppression is this big, bad entity, and it can be," Thorpe said. "But it can be much more subtle in the way we create systems and how we think about access, including things you can't know in advance. Confusing communication to people, a clerk not being able to pick up the phone for hours, platforms that do wonky things and put up inaccurate information, all of that can be suppressing." </p><p>Thorpe, Belies, and other advocates are encouraging Kentucky's leaders to build on the progress they achieved in the primary and continue to expand absentee and in-person voting, including recruiting more poll workers. </p><p>"We need to recruit younger poll workers and we need to start recruiting them now," Belies said. "The shortage of poll workers led to a shortage of polling places which made it harder for poor and disabled citizens to get to the polls. That is a shortcoming that must be addressed."</p><p><a href="https://www.kentucky.com/opinion/op-ed/article243786922.html">In his op-ed</a>, Douglas encouraged the state to continue to allow voters to cast absentee ballots and vote early in-person for weeks before November election, in addition to extending the poll closing times to close at 8 p.m. instead of 6 p.m., and delaying the implementation of a law requiring voters to bring a photo ID to the polls <a href="https://www.wave3.com/2020/04/14/kentucky-lawmakers-strike-down-veto-pass-voter-id-law/">that the legislature passed over Beshear's veto. </a></p><p>"Going back to the prior rules this November and implementing the photo ID law would truly lead to voter suppression," he wrote. "We need to use what worked in this primary and expand upon it." </p>

Kentucky proved naysayers like Hillary Clinton wrong and showed how states can still run successful elections in a pandemic

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>It isn't a sports sedan. It isn't an SUV. I'm not sure that it's even a BMW, given my experience of looking at the German automaker's luxury cars.</p><p>This is what the BMW X6 M is: a "sport activity coupe," or SAC. It's certainly the oddest segment in the motoring world, outside "shooting brakes" (two-door station wagons) and limos with hot tubs.</p><p>BMW has pretty well owned the SAC space, although last year Mercedes rolled out its GLE Coupe to challenge the bimmermeisters for supremacy.</p><p>There's the standard-issue X6, and there's the X6 M, given more warp and woof (much, much more woof) by BMW's M performance division. The run-of-the-mill X6 starts at about $61,000, but once the M dudes get finished with the car, BMW will sell it to you for $115,000 - nicely equipped, as in the case of the "Long Beach blue metallic" version with "Aragon brown full merino leather" interior I recently tested.</p><p>What does the extra $54,150 get you? Mind-bending, borderline disturbing things, as it turns out. You could buy another car or two, obviously, with the difference. But then you'd be deprived of a driving experience so strange that, well, you'll feel incomplete. That is, if you need to drive an un-SUV four-door super-coupe that can give you whiplash if you aren't careful with the throttle and that <em>should</em> inspire confidence going around corners but with a curb weight of 5,300 lbs. and the stance of a draught horse crossed with Optimus Prime, <em>doesn't</em>.</p><p>The X6 M certainly is fun in a straight line, however. The growling, 4.4-liter twin-turbo V8 creates a Matterhorn of torque when you're tooling around on the highway in the placid confines of gear eight and decide to flick it down <em>five whole shifts</em> to third, squeezing the throttle and unleashing the crazy. This car's middle name is "GO!"</p><h2>Breaking up?</h2><p>Actually, all of its names are "GO!" The g's come quick - quickest if you're in "Sport Plus" mode across the board, but fairly swiftly even when you're in "Comfort." You're ultimately not going <em style="line-height: 1.5em;">that </em> fast. But you are <em style="line-height: 1.5em;">accelerating</em> at a borderline alarming pace. It sticks in you head. You're used to this kind of thing if you're driving an M4 coupe (I recently drove the convertible version). In the X6 M, the velocity scrambles your thinking. You're supposed to bond with the furious power of BMW's M cars. But with the X6 M, I kind of wanted a divorce.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The X6 M is an engineering fever dream. There's no reason <em>not</em> to treat it like a jolly old freeway cruiser. God knows I tried, making a run from New York City to the Hamptons on the Long Island Expressway (I've done this in two Corvettes and a Ferrari, by the way, and they slipped easily into their six-lane alter egos as Buicks). But that unholy turbo V8 in the X6 M <em>taunts</em> you. Slip the gearbox out of manual mode, adjust all the driving settings to the calmest possible modes, order up "Watercolors" on SiriusXM radio, and heck, switch on the cruise control - but no.</p><p>The mollified torque still looms like a wild animal stuffed under the hood. The car almost jerks. In fact, it does jerk, like an over-caffeinated panther with fast-twitch muscles. It seems coiled and ireful even when it isn't supposed to. It put me in the mind of the Incredible Hulk, mid-metamorphosis: It's almost as if those deeply rational BMW engineers decided to give free reign to something they'd rather not openly discuss. When you pop the hood, you expect to see molten lava. You can't understand why a fearsome plume of black smoke isn't coming from someplace.</p><h2>Bizarre styling</h2><p>The X6 M looks like a warrior who has showered off the blood of his enemies and slipped into a well-tailored Hugo Boss suit. It looks like it was made by Hot Wheels. It looks vaguely militaristic (it could intimidate a Hummer). All it needs its a cape. It makes an angry sound, its tires are too big and wide and fat, and the styling is thrusty and frankly bizarre. You kind of don't want to look at it. But then you do. And you sort of wish you hadn't.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Inside, BMW has done the usual BMW thing and made sure that as the driver of the Ultimate Driving Machine, you feel immediately familiar with the setup. The seat, the steering wheel, the paddle shifters, the instruments, the center console - you're enveloped in a reassuring, driver-centric BMW-ness. The leather upholstery is supple, carbon-fiber accents are present and skirt that line between stimulating and excessive, and for everyone else in then car the environment is comfortable. Cargo space is adequate, if not abundant.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Mind you, the X6 M is a potent piece of hardware. The V8 cranks out 567 horsepower - <em>over 100 more than the Corvette Stingray!</em> Why? Another 93 equestrians and you're talking about a Corvette Z06. Add three more hp and you're got a Ferrari 458. The X6 M does the 550-horsepower Range Rover Sport SVR 17 hp better. This is a mighty Wagnerian poleaxe of a motor. One doesn't want to argue with it.<em><br /></em></p><h2>Luxury to spare</h2><p>It also ticks off every imaginable luxury box. The infotainment system is BMW's and still hard to use, but it does everything it's supposed to. The sounds system is lovely. The interior styling cues get the "M" treatment, with blue and red stitching on the steering wheel and "M" badges tucked here and there. The seats have many adjustable positions, and they are heated, and they are cooled. The rear seats are quite nice, and the <em>rear</em> climate controls, for what it's worth, are the best I've ever seen.</p><p>Still, that engine! With great power comes great responsibility. Under normal driving conditions, you can make use of about a tenth of what I suspect the X6 M can mete out. Nevertheless, as with the Corvette Z06 and the 650-horsepower active volcano many mistake for its powerplant, you aren't so much driving a car as keeping a leash on the three-headed hound that guards the approaches to the Underworld. Setting it free seems, always, like a very, very bad idea. Plus, it occupies acres of attention span. Daydreaming while driving is not advised.</p><p>It's almost like the Masters of M decided that they <em>just weren't being taken seriously enough. </em>Too many people had the wrong idea about what a BMW actually is. Remember the sweet little BMW 2002 of the 1970s, that spry and peppy sports sedan that defined what Bayerische Motoren Werke meant to its earliest adopters?</p><p>The X6 M ate the BMW 2002 and kept right on chewing. If the dystopia envisioned by "Mad Max" ever comes to pass, expect to see the X6 M among the survivors. The "sport" part of "sport utility coupe," in light of the X6 M's overall attitude, seems pathetically quaint. What "sport" does BMW have in mind? ICBM racing? Dodge ball with meteors?</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>Who would buy this thing?</h2><p>I simply don't understand what you would do with a car like this (although when it comes to the regular X6, many customers know exactly what they want to do and are delighted to buy the car, which has been selling well). It isn't roomy enough to function as an SUV. It doesn't really make you happy to look at it. Trying to cruise around in it induces anxiety. It doesn't want you to become one with its bimmerness.</p><p>Nothing bad will happen if you take a corner with a bit too much enthusiasm - the technocratic all-wheel-drive system supplies a check - but why would you risk it? It can't be a family car because is actually something that you keep in the basement and cut loose when the Four Horsemen appear on the horizon. My children fell asleep in the back seat. I thought they were fools.</p><p>When I return a test car, especially a high-performance luxury machine, I'm generally a little sad. Not this time. I dropped the X6 M off at the garage. I didn't look back.</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/bmw-i8-hybrid-review-test-drive-specs-2015-6">BMW made the first hybrid you won't be embarrassed to be seen driving</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="AxaWtndTpcVX4wDTKSWkDYOO7uFhNrt3" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

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