From April to August 2019, at the urging of its Republican governor, the state of Kentucky purged 175,000 voters from its rolls, including thousands flagged for failure to vote.16 The Democratic secretary of state cried foul, but the GOP appointees on the state’s election board ignored her objections. In response, a coalition of groups brought suit against the purge, and a federal judge agreed that the state failed to follow its own protocols. A month later, the Republican governor lost by just over 5,000 votes, an outcome that might have been vastly different if the illegal purge had stood.
