Judicial Watch, the vigilant oversight group, has taken legal action against California election authorities to compel the removal of ineligible and inactive voters from the state’s rolls. The lawsuit aims to hold California Secretary of State Shirley Weber accountable for adhering to the voter list maintenance obligations stipulated by the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA).
According to the complaint, 21 counties in California reported shockingly low removal rates of registrants during their latest clean-up spanning from November 2020 to November 2022. Astonishingly, 16 of these counties removed no registrants at all. In total, a mere 11 registrants were purged from the voter rolls across these 21 counties, despite there being almost six million names on their lists.
For context, San Diego County officials, between November 2020 and November 2022, managed to remove over 130,000 registrants from their 2.3 million voter registry. Furthermore, Judicial Watch points out that 16 other counties were unable to provide the number of names taken off the rolls during this period. These counties collectively encompass nearly 30 percent of California’s population.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton aptly summarized the gravity of the situation by stating, “Dirty voting rolls can mean dirty elections. And California’s voting rolls continue to be a mess.” He underscored the need for rigorous voter roll maintenance, noting that previous litigation by Judicial Watch had successfully led to the removal of over a million outdated names from voter rolls in California. However, Fitton emphasized that the latest lawsuit reveals there is still significant work to be done.
Notably, as a testament to past success, Judicial Watch announced in February last year that a settlement with Los Angeles County required election officials to expunge more than 1.2 million inactive voters from the voter rolls. With this new lawsuit, Judicial Watch aims to replicate such thorough clean-ups in counties that have been lax in maintaining their voter registration lists.
The case, titled Judicial Watch v. Weber, is currently pending in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California. Judicial Watch’s relentless pursuit of electoral integrity serves as a crucial check against complacency and ensures that the sanctity of the electoral process is upheld in the Golden State.
