Expunge the overreaction: Concern about Kentucky’s process for purging voters is reasonable.

A roll of “I voted” stickers at the Sugar Maple Square voting location in Bowling Green on primary Election Day, May 21, 2024. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Austin Anthony)

Kentuckians should be proud that Secretary of State Michael Adam received a Profile in Courage Award from the John F. Kennedy Foundation for “protecting access to the ballot and ensuring that our nation remains a beacon of democracy.”

In a time of rampant election denialism and threats against election workers, this state in 2021 expanded voting access while many Republican-controlled states pushed ways to restrict it. House Bill 574 allowed ballot drop-boxes, countywide voting centers, and in-person voting for three days, including a Saturday, before Election Day.

Adams, who faced down opposition from within his party, accepted the honor last month “on behalf of the election officials and poll workers across America who sacrifice to keep the American experiment in self-government alive.”

Yet our democracy also includes the right, even the responsibility, to challenge government policies. That’s what Kentuckians for the Commonwealth (KFTC) is doing with its June 28 federal lawsuit against the state’s process of removing voters from the rolls.

So far, Adams and other election officials have overreacted to the group’s reasonable concern — one that legislators could easily address.

The problem: Kentucky does not notify people when they are dropped from voter rolls or allow them time to respond, as required by the 1993 federal National Voter Registration Act . While the federal law allows some flexibility in how states purge voter rolls, it outlines a process of providing written notice and even time to determine if a person votes in the next federal election.

Kentucky law “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,” the grassroots advocacy group said in a news release. A 2023 amendment to the election law requires purging within five days of receiving notice that a voter has registered in another state, The lawsuit asks for an injunction prohibiting the state from canceling voter egistrations until lawmakers can modify the law.

“The notion that we’re disenfranchising people is absolutely ridiculous,” Adams told Spectrum News. “What we’re doing is preventing fraud, and we have an effort by this shady group that is trying to make it able for people to vote in multiple states at the same time.”

Kentucky’s process for purging voter rolls challenged in federal court

Looking forward to challenging the lawsuit in court, Adams said: “We’ve taken 400,000 voters off the rolls in four years, and we haven’t gotten a single complaint, not once.”

No complaints, however, does not necessarily mean no mistakes. What would it hurt to send notice of expungement, just in case another state’s records are wrong?

Also, there is nothing “shady” about KFTC’s four decades of advocacy, community organizing and voter registration. In other comments, Adams described the nonpartisan group, with more than 14,000 members statewide, as “fringe left-wing activists” aiming to “sow chaos and doubt in our elections.”

As the recent attempted assassination of former president Donald Trump illustrates, our country has entered a fraught election season. Partisan groups are gearing up to aggressively monitor the polls, challenge individual votes, and block certification of elections. Trump supporters who launched an insurrection after embracing the conspiracy of a stolen 2020 election, now threaten civil war after another possible loss.

In response, 12 states and Washington, D.C., have banned firearms near polling sites. Since 2022, 20 states have passed laws to protect public officials and election workers from doxing, threats of violence and interference with their duties. Kentucky is not one of those states. Republican political dominance reduces the likelihood of being a battleground state during federal elections.

With little conflict over state election processes, the KTFC lawsuit is seen by Adams as an attack on “a national success story.” However, it simply points out one aspect of state law that needs changing to ensure no citizen is unfairly denied the constitutional right to vote.

Taking the extra step of notification doesn’t require much courage — just common sense.

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