Republican officials in Kentucky and West Virginia are among states refusing to hand over voter registration information without a court order. The information includes names, driver’s license numbers and parts of social security numbers.
Kentucky and West Virginia first refused to share statewide voter registration lists with the Department of Justice last year, according to new DOJ complaints.
At the same time, Kentucky, cited concerns that doing so would violate federal privacy laws.
In Kentucky, the DOJ followed up in December with a legal agreement for data sharing, which it says is identical to agreements that Texas and Alaska have already signed. It says the Kentucky State Board of Elections still hasn’t taken action on it at recent meetings.
The DOJ says it has now sued 29 states for information that Attorney General Pam Bondi claims is necessary to “ensure transparency, voter roll maintenance, and secure elections across the country.” It comes as the Trump administration has repeatedly accused undocumented citizens of fraudulent voting without evidence.
Kentucky’s GOP Secretary of State Michael Adams said he would resist the demand for voter information unless a court order told him otherwise.
“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. 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,” Adams said in a statement.
The state board of elections says it takes its legal responsibilities seriously, but hasn’t gotten the lawsuit yet.
Mike Queen, a spokesperson for West Virginia’s Republican Secretary of State, Kris Warner, was even more blunt in their response.
”Bring it on! The federal government is not going to get any personal information on West Virginia voters as long as Kris Warner is Secretary of State,” Queen wrote to Politico.
In a weekly press availability, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear said he believes President Trump has “already tried to take steps to prevent free and fair elections,” but anticipated a wave of backlash against Republicans if the federal government tried to “get between” Americans and their voting.
