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FRANKFORT, Ky. (FOX 56) — The federal government’s attempt to obtain Kentucky’s unredacted voter registration records has been dismissed, Secretary of State Michael Adams announced Thursday.
According to court filings, the federal government contacted Adams on July 17, 2025, seeking information regarding Kentucky’s compliance with federal election law. Adams responded that the Kentucky State Board of Elections maintains the state’s voter registration database.
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The U.S. government subsequently sent two additional requests for the voter registration list. In its third request, it sought “all fields” from the database, including voters’ full names, dates of birth, addresses, and either driver’s license numbers or the last four digits of Social Security numbers.
Court documents show the federal government filed a motion to compel the Kentucky State Board of Elections to provide the records under the Civil Rights Act. In response, Adams filed a motion asking the court to dismiss the case.
According to the court’s ruling, language in the Civil Rights Act suggests that voter registration records maintained by state election officials are created by those officials rather than obtained from a third party. As a result, the court found the federal government could not compel state or local election officials to provide unredacted voter registration records under that law.
The ruling also noted that the National Voter Registration Act and the Help America Vote Act require election officials to update voter registration records. The court found that applying the Civil Rights Act in the manner argued by the federal government could create potential conflicts because election officials routinely modify voter records as part of their legal responsibilities.
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The court dismissed the federal government’s request for the records on July 23.
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