The U.S. Department of Justice has filed federal lawsuits against Kentucky and four other states — Utah, Oklahoma, West Virginia and New Jersey — alleging they failed to provide complete voter registration lists when requested. With these latest filings, the DOJ has now taken similar action against 29 states and the District of Columbia.
The civil complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky, claims state officials — including Secretary of State Michael Adams — are violating federal civil rights and voter registration laws by refusing to turn over the requested records.
"Accurate, well-maintained voter rolls are a requisite for the election integrity that the American people deserve," said Attorney General Pamela Bondi. "This latest series of litigation underscores that This Department of Justice is fulfilling its duty to ensure transparency, voter roll maintenance, and secure elections across the country."
According to the lawsuit, the DOJ first contacted Kentucky officials in July 2025 regarding compliance with federal election laws. The department later requested the commonwealth’s full voter registration list under the Civil Rights Act, asking that the response include "all fields," including voters’ full names, dates of birth, addresses, and driver’s license numbers or the last four digits of Social Security numbers.
State officials allegedly declined to provide the information and instead sought clarification in an Aug. 22, 2025 letter about how the data would be used. The complaint states the DOJ offered a memorandum of understanding to address privacy concerns, but the Kentucky State Board of Elections rejected the proposal twice.
Adams has maintained that complying with the request would violate state privacy protections.
"Kentucky’s elections are a national success story, and the Department of Justice has repeatedly acknowledged in court our successful work to clean up the dirty voter rolls I inherited," Adams said in a statement. "Kentucky law protects voters’ personal information, and I will not voluntarily commit a data breach by providing Kentuckians’ personal data to the federal bureaucracy unless a court order tells me to.”
Gov. Andy Beshear also addressed the issue during his weekly press conference Thursday, saying Kentuckians’ private information must be safeguarded. He referenced a separate effort by the Trump administration, through the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to access personal data of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) recipients.
“You either put the loyalty to the people of Kentucky and the promise that you made to them about how you would keep their data private, or, in this instance, a loyalty to party or a president first. You only have one choice. I’ll always choose Kentuckians. I’ll always push back when there is an unlawful request,” Beshear said. “That personal data belongs to each and every one of those families, and if the federal government doesn’t have a legitimate right to it, you shouldn’t turn it over. Sadly, in a lot of states, they have. They just did it. They did it without even announcing it. They did it because they’re either loyal to or scared of this president. I’m not either.”
The lawsuits state under the Civil Rights Act of 1960, the Attorney General has broad authority granted by Congress to request election-related records, including statewide voter registration lists that can be reviewed and analyzed for potential inaccuracies or improper registrations.
“The Justice Department will continue to fulfill its oversight role dutifully, neutrally, and transparently wherever Americans vote in federal elections,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “Many state election officials, however, are choosing to fight us in court rather than show their work. We will not be deterred, regardless of party affiliation, from carrying out critical election integrity legal duties.”
Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams has refused to hand over Kentucky voter data access to the Department of Justice which has filed suit against Kentucky and four other states. (KT file photo)
