BURLINGTON — The Boone County Republican Party is using a former Democratic elected official who switched parties while in office to help recruit Democrats into the GOP.

        Democrats across the county have been receiving a letter from former Boone County Commonwealth Attorney Willie Mathis, who switched from Democrat to Republican in 2000. The state's top prosecutor in the county since 1975, Mr. Mathis retired in 2000 without ever seeking office as a Republican.

        Boone County GOP Chairman Ed Moore said the party is using the letter to swell its already-majority political standing in the largest Republican-controlled county in Kentucky.

        “We're being proactive instead of reactive,” Mr. Moore said Wednesday. “This letter is targeted to Democrats age 20 to 50. We're offering them to vote with their conscience and register with their conscience, so to speak.”

        Mr. Moore said “thousands” of the letters are being sent. The letters have gone out to Democrats in 45 of the county's 52 voting precincts.

        Democrats in the seven remaining precincts will be receiving the letters “shortly,” Mr. Moore said.

        As of mid-September in Boone County there were 23,958 Republicans, 21,371 Democrats and 6,292 independents.

        In the letter, Mr. Mathis — who could not be reached to comment— talks of growing up in Boone County when every elected official was a Democrat.

        “So I registered Democrat, told myself that I was going to be a "conservative Democrat,' and then voted Republican in most elections,” Mr. Mathis said.

        “In 2000, after watching our first Republican Fiscal Court in action for two years, I recognized that my values and beliefs better fit the Republican Party,” he said.

        Mr. Mathis then says that a volunteer from the Boone County Republican Party “will call on you, and ask whether you would also consider becoming a Republican.”

        At least two Democratic officeholders — county clerk Marilyn Rouse and County Commissioner Tim Hamilton — have received the letters.

        Neither say they plan to switch parties.

        “I'm a conservative Democrat also,” Ms. Rouse said. “But I don't feel the need to change parties. The Boone County Democrats over the years have been good to Boone County.”

        Mr. Hamilton said a letter is not going to change his political affiliation.

        “I'll be buried a Democrat,” he said.

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