DOJ Wants Kentucky’s Unredacted Voter File

A federal lawsuit asks Kentucky to turn over voter-registration data that includes sensitive personal identifiers for more than 3.3 million registered voters.

Jun 01, 2026

A federal lawsuit asks whether the DOJ can compel Kentucky to turn over its unredacted statewide voter-registration file. Photo: Daderot, Wikimedia Commons. Cropped and resized for article use. Dedicated to the public domain under CC0 1.0.

The U.S. Department of Justice filed United States v. Adams on February 26, 2026, in the Eastern District of Kentucky. The lawsuit asks a federal judge to order Kentucky election officials to produce the state’s electronic voter-registration list with “all fields,” including names, dates of birth, residential addresses, driver’s license numbers, the last four digits of Social Security numbers, or HAVA identification numbers. DOJ requests the records within 5 days of a court order.

That request puts Kentucky voters, county clerks, the Kentucky State Board of Elections, Secretary of State Michael Adams, and the federal courts in the middle of a larger fight over voter data. DOJ says it needs the records to investigate whether Kentucky is complying with federal election law. Kentucky election officials argue DOJ is trying to obtain a state-created voter database containing sensitive personal information for every registered voter in the Commonwealth.

The newest escalation came outside Kentucky. On May 30, DOJ sought the recusal of U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross from a related Georgia voter-records case involving Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Reuters reported that the DOJ tied its request to allegations of judicial misconduct and argued that the judge’s continued role could raise questions of impartiality.

The Georgia filing does not decide Kentucky’s case, but it shows DOJ is pressing these voter-record lawsuits aggressively in more than one state.

DOJ asked a court for Kentucky’s full voter file

DOJ sued Kentucky after months of correspondence with Secretary Adams and the Kentucky State Board of Elections. According to the DOJ’s April 15 filing, the department first raised questions after reviewing Election Administration and Voting Survey data released on June 30, 2025. DOJ says it sent a July 17 letter to Secretary Adams, followed by additional correspondence to the Kentucky State Board of Elections.

DOJ argues that federal law allows the Attorney General to demand election records from state officials. The department relies heavily on Title III of the Civil Rights Act of 1960, including 52 U.S.C. § 20703, which allows the Attorney General to inspect and copy certain election records. DOJ says Kentucky’s statewide voter-registration list qualifies as the kind of record federal law permits the Attorney General to demand.

Kentucky has resisted that interpretation. The Kentucky State Board of Elections filed a motion to dismiss on March 10, 2026, arguing that federal law allows the DOJ to inspect records that election officials receive during registration, but does not authorize the DOJ to demand the statewide voter-registration list itself. The Board describes the voter list as a state-created administrative database containing sensitive personally identifiable information for all Kentucky voters.

Secretary Adams also moved to dismiss. His filing argues that the claim against him is improper because the State Board of Elections, not the Secretary of State acting alone, controls the statewide voter-registration list. Kentucky law gives the State Board responsibility for maintaining the voter roster and protecting it from inappropriate use.

The legal fight turns on what counts as an election record

Kentucky maintains a statewide voter-registration list under state and federal election law. County clerks interact with voters locally, process registration activity, and answer registration questions. The Kentucky State Board of Elections maintains the statewide roster and administers list-maintenance responsibilities.

The federal Help America Vote Act requires each state to maintain a computerized statewide voter-registration list. That list helps election offices verify registration status, update records, remove ineligible registrations, and administer elections. DOJ argues that access to the unredacted Kentucky file is necessary to evaluate whether Kentucky is complying with federal list-maintenance requirements.

Kentucky’s argument draws a distinction between voter-registration documents and the statewide database built from them. The State Board says DOJ can inspect specific records that come into election officials’ possession during voter registration, but cannot use that authority to obtain the entire statewide voter file with sensitive identifiers.

The difference affects scale and privacy risk: one request targets individual election records, while the other seeks a statewide database with millions of voter files. A voter-registration application, address update, cancellation form, or confirmation notice is one type of record. A statewide database containing millions of voter records, personal identifiers, and administrative fields differs in scale, privacy risk, and potential uses.

The lawsuit asks the federal court to decide whether the DOJ’s reading of federal law is broad enough to compel Kentucky to hand over the full unredacted file. If the court agrees with the DOJ, Kentucky could be ordered to produce data for every registered voter in the state. If the court agrees with Kentucky, the DOJ would have to use a narrower demand or pursue another legal route.

The file contains more than names and addresses

The ACLU says the DOJ is seeking sensitive, nonpublic information from Kentucky’s voter registration database, including Social Security numbers, driver’s license numbers, dates of birth, and home addresses.

The Kentucky case involves more than a list of names.

It concerns the transfer of personal data held by Kentucky election offices to the federal government.

The Kentucky State Board’s motion says Kentucky had 3,354,665 registered voters as of February 2026. That means the lawsuit could affect millions of records, not a small set of disputed registrations. The Board also says Kentucky removed roughly 735,000 ineligible registrations from the rolls since 2019, which it uses to argue that the state has been actively maintaining its voter list.

DOJ’s filing points to Kentucky’s reporting on confirmation notices. DOJ says Kentucky sent confirmation notices to only 3% of active registered voters, compared with a national average of 19.5%. DOJ uses that comparison to support its claim that Kentucky’s list-maintenance data raised legitimate questions.

Kentucky voters do not need to choose between list maintenance and data privacy.

Election rolls should be accurate. Voter data should be protected. The question before the federal court is whether the DOJ can use the federal Election Records Law to obtain the full, unredacted statewide voter database from Kentucky.

Kentucky is one case in a national voter-data push

Kentucky is one piece of a national voter-records strategy. ACLU of Kentucky says DOJ filed suit in February 2026 after Kentucky declined to provide the complete, unredacted voter list, and describes the case as one of at least 29 nearly identical cases brought against states that refused to comply.

Local reporting also described the Kentucky lawsuit as part of a larger set of suits. WDRB reported on February 26 that the DOJ sued Kentucky and four other states, bringing the total to 29 states plus the District of Columbia.

The Georgia case shows the same basic dispute in another state. DOJ sued Georgia over access to its non-public voter-registration list, and the case has already produced a procedural fight over the assigned federal judge. AP reported that the DOJ asked Judge Eleanor Ross to recuse herself from the Georgia election-records case, citing concerns related to her alleged attendance at an event connected to Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis.

The Kentucky story is stronger and more direct: DOJ is asking for Kentucky’s unredacted voter file, Kentucky election officials are resisting, and a federal court will decide how far DOJ’s authority extends.

What you can ask now

Track the federal case. The key docket is United States v. Adams, 3:26-cv-00019, in the Eastern District of Kentucky. The next important decisions will involve the motions to dismiss, intervention requests, and any order addressing whether Kentucky must produce the voter data.

Ask the Kentucky State Board of Elections what data fields are included in the statewide voter-registration list, how the Board protects those fields, and whether any data-sharing agreement with the DOJ would include retention limits, access logs, encryption requirements, audit rights, and destruction deadlines.

Ask your county clerk how local voter-registration data is handled, what data is shared with the State Board, and how the clerk would notify voters if a court ordered transfer of sensitive data. County clerks are the election offices most voters know, and they will likely face the first round of public questions if the court orders production.

Ask Secretary Adams, the State Board, and county clerks whether they will oppose any demand that lacks strict privacy safeguards. Also, ask Kentucky’s congressional delegation whether they support the DOJ collecting unredacted statewide voter files from states, and what limits they believe should apply to federal access.

Document any voter confusion, intimidation, registration hesitation, or fear among naturalized citizens and immigrant families. The ACLU has warned that sensitive voter data can be misused in matching efforts that create false positives, especially involving naturalized citizens. Kentucky-specific evidence should be documented carefully rather than assumed.

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