American Oversight Asks Court to Order Further Searches in Lawsuit for Records from Kentucky’s 2020 ‘Ballot Integrity Task Force’

On Tuesday, American Oversight asked a Kentucky court to order the state attorney general’s office to conduct a further search for public records related to the “Ballot Integrity Task Force” that the office created before the 2020 election to investigate and prosecute “election law violations.”

American Oversight sued the office of Attorney General Daniel Cameron in September 2020, after the office failed to release documents in response to our open records requests. In July 2022, the Franklin County Circuit Court ruled that the office must release a number of public records that it had improperly withheld related to the task force, a partnership between state election officials and law enforcement aimed at investigating and deterring incidents of supposed “voter fraud.” The court found the attorney general’s original search for records — which had turned up only 14 responsive records — was inadequate and ordered the office to conduct a more thorough search within 20 days. 

Tuesday’s response and objection filed by American Oversight alerted the court that the attorney general’s subsequent records search was also inadequate, asked for an additional search, and — if the office does not comply — seeks an evidentiary hearing regarding its lack of compliance. 

American Oversight first filed open records requests with the Kentucky attorney general in July 2020 for task force formation documents, meeting notices, agendas and minutes, and reports, as well as emails sent by task force members containing key terms related to voter fraud. 

Kentucky’s Ballot Integrity Task Force was formed in late May 2020 and chaired by Cameron and Secretary of State Michael Adams, one of several such groups created in states across the country that purported to safeguard elections but were designed to amplify then President Donald Trump’s false claims about the threat of voter fraud.