If you go down to the county clerk’s office and make a public records request, can you examine ballots cast in an election?
A case moving through the Kentucky court system involving a Boone County resident aims to answer that question, and the most recent ruling in the case, made at the end of April by the Kentucky Court of Appeals, is a solid no, reversing an earlier ruling from March of last year ordering such examination as allowable.
It all started on June 16, 2023, when Hebron resident Christine McLaughlin made an open records request with the Boone County Clerk’s office to inspect about 1,267 ballots from the May 2023 primary election cast at seven polling sites throughout the county: the Petersburg Community Center, Burlington Elementary, the main branch of the Boone County Public Library, the Boone Links Golf Course Clubhouse, the Union Fire Station, Gray Middle School and Florence Elementary School. These sites spanned 10 voting precincts.
The reason for this request is not outlined in the original records request. McLaughlin could not be reached directly, and her attorney, Brain Corneilson, declined to comment. The tenor of court documents, however, suggest that McLaughlin may have been worried about the integrity of the election, even if it would be perhaps hasty to claim this without any direct statements on her motivations.
At any rate, the clerk’s office under the aegis of Justin Crigler, who still occupies the role, denied her request on June 22, 2023. Crigler and his office cited six reasons for the denial, but the ones that would eventually take up the most time in the case were the arguments that allowing the inspection of the ballots would violate voters’ privacy and would corrupt the secrecy of the ballots.
Specifically, the clerk pointed to the section of Kentucky law that blocks disclosure of records when “public disclosure thereof would constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.” Additionally, they point to another portion of Kentucky law, which states, “voting in all primaries and elections shall be by secret paper ballot.”
About a month later in July 2023, McLaughlin filed a petition with the Boone County Circuit Court challenging the clerk’s decision.
“If Boone County ballots currently violate the privacy and secrecy requirements of the law–or the mere inspection of the ballots would violate the law–then those problems pre-existed McLaughlin’s [records request], and those potential violations of law would increase, rather than decrease, the impetus for McLaughlin’s inspection of the ballots,” one section of the petition reads.
The petition concludes with a request for the court to reverse the clerk’s denial, order the clerk the notify McLaughlin when and how she could inspect the ballots and finally order the clerk to pay for McLaughlin’s attorney’s fees as well as an extra $25 per day for every day past June 16, 2023.
A long legal battle ensued that included multiple requests for hearings and summary judgements from the court, as well as a brief in defense of the clerk’s actions from the Kentucky Clerk’s Association, which argued “while Plaintiff’s desire to review cast ballots may be laudable, it must yield to the rights of Kentucky voters, who have a federal and state constitutional right to cast a secret ballot, and to have their cast votes remain secret.
“If Kentucky voters know that their ballot may not, in fact, be secret – that others can learn who someone voted for – the entire point of having secret ballots would be defeated – and voters would be hesitant to cast ballots, knowing that they may be subject to reprisals for their political choices.”
The Clerks’ Association worried that inspection of the ballots, even if the individual ballots themselves did not contain any identifying information, might give someone the opportunity to essentially work backwards to discern someone’s identity based on other available information.
“Cast ballots (which have bar codes) can be decoded, which would provide information to someone to someone seeking to reverse engineer and determine how an individual cast his or her ballot,” the association’s brief reads. The clerk’s office argued this was particularly true in precincts with low voter turnout, especially since voter sign-in logs were considered public records.
McLaughlin, on the other hand, argued that ballots, by definition of being secret, couldn’t contain information personal information while also being, well, secret.
“Secrecy and personal information cannot co-exist on the same ballot,” McLaughlin’s team argues. “So if any of the Requested Ballots really have any personal information on them, in the barcodes or otherwise, then somebody probably violated the Kentucky Constitution, and at least one statute.”
McLaughlin’s team goes on to argue “the secrecy that makes the secret ballot secret, is not the ballot, but the anonymity process, which ensures the voter’s name, date of birth, and home address, that are recorded in the Precinct Signature Register (aka Poll Book), are not present on the ballot.”
Finally, on March 7, 2024, Judge Richard Brueggemann ruled in favor of McLaughlin, judging that ballots were, in fact, a form of public record that any resident could examine.
“A citizen should not be disparaged for seeking to verify the process of our elections,” Brueggemann writes. “On the contrary, it is more likely an act worthy of praise. Under the Kentucky Open Records Act, government agents have no monopoly on verifying the accuracy of the process. Even if the Request were motivated by distrust, the solution is transparency not secrecy. That is the whole point of the Open Records Act.”
That wasn’t the end of it, though.
The clerk’s office sought an appeal later that month, escalating the case to the Kentucky Court of Appeals. Over a year later on April 25, 2025, Appeals Judge Jacqueline Caldwell reversed the lower court’s decision.
Caldwell agreed with Brueggemann that cast ballots met the definition of a public record but largely agreed with the clerk’s argument that other available information could be used to discern the identity of voters.
“Regardless of whether many or only a few individual voters might be affected,” Caldwell writes, “the vote cast by an individual is information of a personal nature and any increase in the risk – however, small – of ascertaining individual votes through open records inspection is unacceptable as public revelation of any individual vote would clearly be an unwarranted invasion of personal privacy.”
Caldwell goes on to argue, “while the public may not inspect cast ballots under the Open Records Act, the public may inspect other election records under the Open Records Act (such as video surveillance of election machines, voter sign-in rosters, and election poll books) and review election results publicly released by the State Board of Elections. Moreover, individuals who seek further involvement to help ensure that elections are conducted fairly can apply to serve as precinct election officers.”
Caldewell concludes, “in sum, the constitutionally enshrined secrecy of the ballot outweighs any public interest in allowing inspection of cast ballots especially since other election records are already available for public inspection.”
Jeff Mando, the attorney representing the clerk’s office in the case, characterized the judgement as a victory.
“It’s a significant ruling because it upholds the sanctity of the ballot,” Mando said. “It lets everyone know that when they cast a ballot it will remain secret.”
Although Corneilson declined to comment on the specifics of the case or the ruling, he did say that he intended to request a re-hearing in the appeals court to reconsider the case. He has until May 15 to do so.