HARRISBURG – Litigation brought by an Indianapolis advocacy group which charged the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania with violating the National Voter Registration Act in allegedly failing to maintain and update its rolls by removing deceased voters, has been settled.
Public Interest Legal Foundation of Indianapolis, Ind. first filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania on Oct. 15 versus now-former Secretary of the Commonwealth Kathy Boockvar, of Harrisburg.
“The Foundation has spent many thousands of dollars reviewing Pennsylvania’s election procedures and documented failures to maintain an accurate and correct voter roll as required by the NVRA. The Foundation’s investigation of the rolls, both then and now, has forced it to incur substantial costs to compare the Commonwealth’s voter rolls to the Social Security Death Index, various commercial databases, and other sources in order to identify deceased voters,” the suit stated.
The suit said the plaintiff’s own investigation in early 2020 showed that about 9,300 deceased individuals remained on the active voter rolls in Pennsylvania.
Prior to the 2020 Presidential Election, the plaintiff said further investigation showed that more than 21,000 deceased individuals remained on both the active and inactive voter rolls – and after initial cooperation, the plaintiff revealed the Commonwealth has not collaborated with it further.
Counsel for the Commonwealth replied a motion to dismiss the case on Nov. 19 and a supporting brief on Dec. 3, arguing the plaintiff had failed to plead its case with proper detail.
“Plaintiff Public Interest Legal Foundation seeks in this action to compel the Commonwealth to substitute its preferred method of identifying deceased voters for the procedure specifically adopted by the General Assembly pursuant to the directive in the National Voter Registration Act. Notwithstanding a prior amendment, PILF fails to state a claim upon which relief can be granted,” the motion stated, in part.
“PILF lacks standing because it alleges only a generalized grievance against a statutory procedure that it views as inadequate. This is not a concrete and particularized injury cognizable under the NVRA and is not traceable to the Secretary of the Commonwealth or redressable by a decision in this case.”
Additionally, the Commonwealth argued that PILF failed to allege a violation of the NVRA, asserting “no facts that plausibly suggest that the Commonwealth’s list maintenance program is unreasonable and, therefore, violative of the NVRA.”
“Because the list maintenance obligation at issue is delegated by statute to the counties in Pennsylvania and neither the General Assembly nor the counties are joined as defendants, the relief that PILF seeks – an order requiring implementation of new procedures to purge the names of deceased voters – is not possible,” the dismissal motion stated.
UPDATE
After a virtual settlement conference was held between the parties before U.S. Magistrate Judge Karoline Mehalchick on Feb. 22, it was reported that a settlement had been reached.
Five weeks later, on April 1, U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania Judge John E. Jones III announced that the case had been dismissed, as a result of a conditional settlement that was awaiting finalization.
On Wednesday, the terms of the settlement were released in a public statement from PILF. They are as follows:
• Before the 2021 statewide general election, the death data set received from the Electronic Registration Information Center will be compared to the full voter registration database to identify individuals who are ineligible to vote due to their death;
• The Pennsylvania Department of State will give each county commission the names of the individuals identified as deceased and inform the commissions that they should promptly cancel the registrations;
The Department of State will provide PILF with copies of the full voter export at three-month intervals on three separate occasions – May 30, 2021, August 31, 2021 and November 30, 2021.
“This marks an important victory for the integrity of elections in Pennsylvania. The Commonwealth’s failure to remove deceased registrants created a vast opportunity for voter fraud and abuse. It is important to not have dead voters active on the rolls for 5, 10 or even 20 years. This settlement fixes that,” PILF President and General Counsel J. Christian Adams said.
The plaintiff was represented by Bradley J. Schlozman of Hinkle Law Firm in Wichita, Kan., John Eastman of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence in Orange, Calif, Linda Ann Kerns of the Law Office of Linda Ann Kerns in Philadelphia and Sue Becker of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, in Indianapolis, Ind.
The defendant was represented by Daniel T. Brier, Donna A. Walsh, John B. Dempsey, Richard L. Armezzani and Suzanne Conaboy of Myers Brier & Kelly in Scranton, plus Stephen Moniak of the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office, in Harrisburg.
U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania case 1:20-cv-01905
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com