Kentucky was one of dozens of states that the U.S. Department of Justice sent threatening letters to earlier this month, continuing their demands for sensitive data on registered voters.
In the Sept. 4 letter obtained through an open records request, the DOJ told Kentucky’s GOP Secretary of State Michael Adams he is “currently under investigation” for failing to comply with previous demands for voter data, warning that he may be subject to “civil and criminal sanctions” if he doesn’t preserve voting records going back to the 2024 general election.
Kentucky is one of 30 states where the chief election official was sued by the DOJ in February for denying federal demands to turn over their private voter rolls, which include driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers. These attempts have not borne any fruit so far, with at least 23 of the lawsuits dismissed by federal courts and none receiving a favorable ruling.
Western District of Kentucky Judge Clara Boom dismissed the DOJ lawsuit against Adams in July, citing a previous U.S. Court of Appeals ruling in the Michigan case. Like their other losses, the DOJ has appealed the ruling.
The lawsuits and threatening letters are part of the administration’s push to root out allegedly widespread voter fraud, with an emphasis on noncitizens voting. Scant evidence of noncitizens voting has been discovered so far, while a recent Reuters analysis found only 73 noncitizens have been convicted of voting illegally in the past 30 years.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly pushed conspiracy theories that the 2020 election was rigged against him with widespread voter fraud and hacked voting machines, which have all been debunked or unsubstantiated. He has made the same claim that the 2026 election will be rigged against Republicans, without evidence.
While most of the states targeted by the DOJ in the lawsuits and most recent letters have a Democratic chief election official, Kentucky is one of four states led by Republican officials.
Asked about the Sept. 4 letter from Eric Neff — the acting chief of the Voting Section in the DOJ civil rights division — Adams’ spokesperson Nick Storm replied that the secretary has not responded to it and “we’re not going to litigate disputes through the media.”
Adams has previously released statements and social media posts saying he would not turn over sensitive voter information unless ordered to do so by the court system.
“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 stated after the February lawsuit. “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.”
Following the July dismissal of the DOJ lawsuit against him and the State Board of Elections, Adams posted that “Kentucky’s elections are secure, and so is your personal information.”
The September letter the DOJ sent to chief election officials has received forceful pushback in some states, including Utah, where elections are overseen by GOP Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson.
“If you cared about the security of the elections, … you would not be threatening election officials with prison sentences, you would not be suing all of us, you would not be investigating all of us constantly,” Henderson told The Salt Lake Tribune. “You would not be making it so that we’re not able to do our actual jobs.”
Chief election officials in all 50 states were also sent a letter from the DOJ civil rights division in July threatening criminal prosecution against them if any noncitizens voted in the general election this fall.
The Sept. 4 letter to Adams told him he was obligated to conduct a “litigation hold” to preserve all information from the 2024 election, despite officials having the legal authority to destroy such records after 22 months — which was the following day.
“Your failure to preserve relevant data may constitute spoliation of evidence, which may subject you to civil and criminal sanctions,” Neff wrote. “We trust that you will preserve for the duration of our investigation and any subsequent litigation all Relevant Documents.”
The Trump administration has created a citizenship verification program called the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements Program, or SAVE, to identify noncitizens, though its rollout in some states has been plagued with errors.
Kentucky lawmakers passed a bill this year that authorizes, but doesn’t require, the State Board of Elections to use a federal citizen verification system. Individuals found ineligible through the system would have to prove their citizenship before they are allowed to vote.
Trump has unsuccessfully pushed Congress to pass the SAVE Act, which would require all voters in all states to present proof of citizenship to register to vote and a specific state-issued photo ID in order to vote.
