The U.S. Department of Justice is suing five additional states, including Kentucky, for not providing voter registration data, including sensitive information such as driver’s license and Social Security numbers.
Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams, a Republican, said in a Thursday statement that he would “not voluntarily commit a data breach” of Kentuckians’ private information without a court order.
Adams and members of the Kentucky State Board of Elections are named as defendants in the lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court of Eastern Kentucky.
The DOJ is now suing 29 states and the District of Columbia for the information, which it has said it would use to ensure clean voting rolls in the states.
Under the second Trump administration, DOJ officials began asking states for voter information last year. The DOJ has since shared voter roll information with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to search for noncitizens. Homeland Security is building out a powerful citizenship verification program and touting it as a way to ensure election integrity.
Adams previously told the Kentucky Lantern about the inquiry from the DOJ in a December interview.
“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 Thursday. “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.”
Karen Sellers, the executive director for the State Board of Elections said in an email that it is ware of the lawsuit but had not yet been served.
“The Board takes seriously its obligations under state and federal law and will respond to the complaint when it is served,” Sellers said.
A press release from the DOJ argues the department is entitled to the data under the Civil Rights Act of 1960.
“Accurate, well-maintained voter rolls are a requisite for the election integrity that the American people deserve,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi in a statement. “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.”
Other states being sued in the latest round of lawsuits are Utah, Oklahoma, West Virginia and New Jersey.