HARRISBURG – Litigation from election integrity group Judicial Watch against the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and five of its counties has been settled, resulting in nearly 180,000 inactive voters being removed from voter rolls statewide.
Judicial Watch, Inc. first brought suit against the Commonwealth and several Pennsylvania counties in April 2020, alleging that the counties were remiss in completing their regular maintenance of voter registration rolls, leaving many thousands of inactive voters still on the books and thus being a violation of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).
With the filing of an amended complaint in November 2021, Bucks County, Chester County and Delaware County were all dismissed from the case – leaving Luzerne County, Cumberland County, Washington County, Indiana County and Carbon County, their boards of election and numerous related officials as defendants.
Judicial Watch alleged a “multi-year failure” on the defendants’ parts to maintain accurate voter registration lists, as the NVRA mandates, leading it to send a notice-of-violation letter to then-Secretary of the Commonwealth Veronica Degraffenreid, outlining such violations by the Commonwealth and 27 separate counties.
In a September 2021 brief filed during the litigation, the Commonwealth explained it acted on the violations contained in Judicial Watch’s letter.
“Upon receiving the [April 22, 2021] letter, the Secretary [of the Commonwealth] immediately took action by investigating the issues raised and working with the identified 27 counties to remove outstanding inactive voters who had failed to return a confirmation notice and did not participate in the subsequent two consecutive federal elections. With the Secretary’s assistance, the counties removed every single inactive voter eligible for removal from the rolls. The total inactive voters removed was 178,258. There are now zero inactive voters eligible for removal in each of the identified 27 counties,” the Commonwealth’s brief stated.
Judicial Watch announced the case’s final settlement on Thursday.
According to the settlement’s terms, the Commonwealth has agreed to publish the total number of registered and eligible voters (both active and inactive) in the five named counties by June 30 of each year on the Department of State’s website, for the next five years.
Furthermore, it agreed to publish the total number of address confirmation notices sent to registered voters and the number returned as undeliverable or not responded to – and will also publish the total number of voters removed from the registration rolls on account of death, or for failing to respond to an address confirmation notice and failing to vote in the two most recent federal general elections.
“Pennsylvania’s election rolls are cleaner – and will remain cleaner – thanks to Judicial Watch. This federal lawsuit settlement is good news for voters in Pennsylvania who want to ensure that only eligible voters are on voter rolls. Judicial Watch’s remarkable run of litigation successes resulted in well over two million ineligible registrations being removed from voter rolls across the nation in the last two years,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said.
Judicial Watch has engaged in similar litigation in other states, including California, Colorado, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana Kentucky and Maryland.
The Department of State also issued remarks regarding the settlement, which denied any wrongdoing on the part of the Commonwealth.
“The lawsuit did not show any failure on Pennsylvania’s part to comply with federal and state law governing voter roll maintenance. The agreement simply requires the department to separately publish data it already compiles and reports in its annual report on voter registration,” according to their statement.
U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania case 1:20-cv-00708
From the Pennsylvania Record: Reach Courts Reporter Nicholas Malfitano at nick.malfitano@therecordinc.com