The League of Women Voters of Kentucky (LWVK), the New Americans Initiative and two individual Kentucky voters, represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky and the ACLU Voting Rights Project, filed a motion to intervene in the lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to force Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams (R) to turn over a significant amount of voter data, including sensitive private information of Kentuckians who have registered to vote.
The case is pending before United States District Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove, an appointee of President George W. Bush for the Eastern District of Kentucky. The Kentucky Alliance for Retired Americans has also moved to intervene. VanTatenhove has yet to rule, and it is unlikely he will before the DOJ files its response to the intervention requests.
“Kentuckians should be able to participate in our elections without worrying that their most sensitive personal information will be handed over or misused,” said Dr. Jennifer Jackson, LWVK president. “Voter data exists to administer elections, not to fuel political fishing expeditions or undermine confidence in the process. The League of Women Voters of Kentucky is stepping in to ensure voters’ privacy is respected and that people can continue to engage in our democracy without fear.”
“The Department of Justice is seeking access to highly sensitive voter information that states are legally obligated to protect. Requests like this create serious privacy risks and open the door to intimidation and illegal challenges to eligible voters,” said Caren Short, LWVK director of legal and research. ‘The League is proud to send the message to the federal government that wherever you try to harm voters, the League will be there to fight back.”
The filing comes after the DOJ filed a lawsuit against Adams for refusing to turn over Kentucky’s statewide voter registration list. The DOJ in July 2025 demanded the information, which included Kentucky citizens who had registered full names, dates of birth, addresses, driver’s license numbers or partial Social Security numbers. All of that information is currently protected from disclosure under state and federal law.
According to an LWVK press release, this lawsuit is “one of many against states as part of (President Donald) Trump’s efforts to build a national repository of voter information without congressional authorization or oversight.”
In their brief, the League argues that the DOJ’s request threatens voter privacy and could enable voter disenfranchisement. They seek to advance the interests of civic engagement groups, whose work is compromised when Kentucky residents have reason to distrust the registration process and individual voters, including naturalized citizens, who risk being targeted by the federal government and whose private data is impacted by this litigation.
The brief references public reports indicating that DOJ intends to create an “unauthorized and unlawful national voter database – that may be shared with other federal agencies like the Department of Homeland Security – and to use this illicit tool, in conjunction with unreliable DOGE-inspired data-matching and aggregation techniques, to illegally target and challenge voters.” (DOGE stands for Department of Government Efficiency.)
LWVK argues this effort creates heightened risks for certain groups of voters, including naturalized citizens and voters with prior felony convictions, whose current eligibility might not be reflected in databases that have out-of-date information.