Today, Kentuckians for the Commonwealth filed a lawsuit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky challenging a provision in Kentucky election law that mandates the removal of voters from voter registration rolls without following procedures required by federal law. The plaintiff, represented by Fair Elections Center and Kentucky Equal Justice Center, argues that amendments to state law in 2021 regarding voter removals under Kentucky House Bill 574 clearly violate the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA).
The NVRA establishes rules and procedures concerning when an election official can remove a voter from the voter rolls if they believe the voter has moved and is no longer eligible to vote in their jurisdiction. Administrators are required to give voters a formal written notice that the voter’s address needs to be confirmed and to provide adequate opportunity for the voter to respond to the notice or prove their continued residency. As currently written, Kentucky law bypasses these requirements and allows administrators to remove voters without any notice, opportunity to respond or waiting period, which could lead to eligible voters being wrongly and unlawfully removed.
“Voting matters. We register voters all over the state–and when someone follows all the right steps to register to vote and shows up at the polls, they shouldn’t have to worry about whether the state has illegally removed them from the voter rolls,” said Dee Parker, Co-Chair of Kentuckians For The Commonwealth.
“Eligible voters should not be removed from voter registration rolls without any due process or opportunity to confirm their residency. Currently in Kentucky, a voter might not learn they have been wrongly removed from the rolls until they show up to the polls to vote. And by then it’s too late–the voter is disenfranchised,” said Beauregard Patterson, Counsel at Fair Elections Center. “The National Voter Registration Act includes safeguards to ensure that voter registration rolls are accurate and prevent voters from being mistakenly denied their right to vote. It’s simple: Kentucky needs to follow the law.”
“Purging Kentuckians who have registered to vote from the registration rolls in violation of the NVRA will disproportionately impact those Kentuckians most likely to move: low-wage, young, BIPOC, and other groups marginalized by systems designed to silence their voices,” said Ben Carter, Senior Litigation and Advocacy Counsel at the Kentucky Equal Justice Center. “Our democracy only works for everyone when everyone gets to work on our democracy.”
The full complaint can be read here.
