Kris Warner announced that West Virginia will not provide unredacted voter registration records to the U.S. Department of Justice, citing state privacy laws.
The DOJ has asked nearly all states to submit detailed election records, including voter registration lists containing driver’s license numbers, birth dates, home addresses and Social Security numbers.
Warner sent a letter to federal officials arguing that the statutes referenced by the DOJ do not require the state to comply and that West Virginia law protects voters’ sensitive personal information. He said only redacted voter lists are available through his office and that protected data will not be released.
The federal government has filed lawsuits against more than 20 states and Washington, D.C., over similar refusals. A federal judge in Michigan recently dismissed one of those cases, ruling that no federal law authorizes the DOJ to demand unredacted voter registration files.
Warner said West Virginia currently has 1,195,305 registered voters. Since 2017, more than 400,000 outdated or ineligible registrations have been lawfully removed, while more than 350,000 new voters have been added to the rolls.