The underlying dispute began in July 2025, when the United States contacted the Kentucky State Board of Elections seeking information about the state's compliance with federal election law. By August 2025, the government had escalated to demanding the full statewide voter registration list with all data fields, citing the National Voter Registration Act, the Help America Vote Act, and the Civil Rights Act as authority. Kentucky's election officials sought clarification, declined to sign a Memorandum of Understanding the government offered in December 2025, and rejected the demands outright. The United States filed suit on February 26, 2026, naming Kentucky Secretary of State Michael Adams in his official capacity as Chief Election Official and several other members of the Kentucky State Board of Elections, seeking declaratory and injunctive relief.
The case is described in the opinion as one in a series of actions the United States has brought seeking voter registration information from states and localities.
Three sets of proposed intervenors moved to join as defendants within weeks of the suit's filing. The Kentucky Alliance for Retired Americans, a public interest organization with over 62,000 members, sought to prevent what it characterized as improper disclosure of its members' sensitive personal information. The League of Women Voters of Kentucky, the New Americans Alliance, and two individual foreign-born registered Kentucky voters — Zitsi Mirakhur and Joern Soltau — moved jointly, with the League asserting that its members may include voters who are especially likely to be mistakenly caught up in the government's efforts to remove voters from voter rolls. Jefferson County Clerk Charles David Yates moved separately, arguing that the litigation directly affects his statutory duties as the primary custodian of Jefferson County voter registration records and could subject him to conflicting legal obligations.
Neither the United States nor the original defendants filed responses to any of the intervention motions, and the time to do so passed. Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove, sitting in the Eastern District of Kentucky, granted all three motions on April 14, 2026, under the permissive intervention standard of Rule 24(b), without reaching whether the proposed intervenors were also entitled to intervene as of right under Rule 24(a). The court found that the motions were timely — all filed within three weeks of the suit's commencement — and that the proposed intervenors' defenses share common questions of law with the main action, namely the interpretation of the same three federal statutes at the heart of the government's complaint. The court also found that intervention would cause no undue delay or prejudice, noting that all original parties and proposed intervenors had jointly moved for a consolidated briefing schedule that already contemplated the intervenors' participation.
Dispositive motions have been filed in the case and are still being briefed.