Thursday, December 14, 2017
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Watchdog Group Brings Action to Force Purging Voter Lists of Ineligible Persons
Suit Filed in U.S. District Court Against Logan, Padilla
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Judicial Watch, a nonprofit advocacy group headquartered in the District of Columbia, and others brought suit in federal court yesterday alleging that adequate efforts are not being made to purge ineligible persons from the voters’ rolls and seeking action at the state and county levels to clamp down on illegal voting.
The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, alleges:
“Eleven of California’s 58 counties have registration rates exceeding 100% of the age-eligible citizenry.”
It adds that data published by the U.S. Election Assistance Commission shows that Los Angeles County “has a registration rate of 112% of its adult citizen population.”
On a statewide basis, it avers, there is “a registration rate of about 101%” of the “age-eligible citizenry.”
Federal Statute Cited
The action seeks a declaration that Los Angeles County Registrar of Voters and California Secretary of State Alex Padilla are in violation of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 which requires states to “conduct a general program that makes a reasonable effort to remove the names of ineligible voters from the official lists of eligible voters” and an order that they come into compliance with it.
It further seeks an order “to develop and implement a general program that makes a reasonable effort to remove from Los Angeles County’s rolls the registrations of ineligible registrants.”
By not removing names of voters who have not voted in two consecutive federal general elections, the complaint says, fraud is facilitated. It explains:
“Inactive registrations which may be voted by mail or in person on election day are particularly vulnerable to fraudulent abuse by a third party, because a voter who has moved to a different state is unlikely to monitor the use of or communications concerning an old registration,” adding:
“Inactive registrations are also inherently vulnerable to abuse by voters who plan to fraudulently double-vote in two different jurisdictions on the same election day.”
Los Angeles County
It alleges that Los Angeles County “has the highest number of inactive registrations of any single county in the country.”
The plaintiffs are seeking access, which has been denied, to voter registration records.
Plaintiffs, in addition to Judicial Watch, are Election Integrity Project California, Inc., headquartered in Santa Clarita, and four lawfully registered voters.
Heading the attorneys for the plaintiffs is Charles H. Bell Jr. of the Sherman Oaks and Sacramento law firm of Bell, McAndrews & Hiltachk, LLP. He immediate past general counsel to the California Republican Party and is a past president of the Republican National Lawyers Association, of which he is presently general counsel.
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