Washington D.C. officials have been compelled to comply with legal threats from a judicial watchdog and is now purging its voter rolls of over 100,000 ineligible names.
“We sent notice letters to election officials in the District of Columbia, California, and Illinois, notifying them of evident violations of the National Voter Registration Act(NVRA) of 1993, based on their failure to remove inactive voters from their registration rolls,” Judicial Watch announced on Friday.
“In response to our inquiries, Washington, DC, officials admitted that they had not complied with the NVRA, promptly removed 65,544 outdated names from the voting rolls, promised to remove 37,962 more, and designated another 73,522 registrations as ‘inactive’,” the announcement noted.
The notice letter sent to the District of Columbia noted that it had remove “zero voter registrations in the last two-year reporting period” for “failing to respond to an address confirmation notice” for “failing to vote in two consecutive general federal elections.”
- DC flatly admitted in correspondence with Judicial Watch that it was failing to remove registrations as required by the NVRA, citing data conversion, staffing, and other issues
- DC’s total registration rate—its total number of registrations divided by the most recent census estimates of its citizen voting-age population—is greater than 131%
The notice letter sent to California on behalf of Judicial Watch and the Libertarian Party of California, states:
- California’s survey responses to the EAC show that 27 California counties reported removing five or fewer—and, in most of those counties, zero—voter registrations in the last two-year period for failing to respond to an address confirmation notice and failing to vote in two consecutive general federal elections
- Another 19 California counties simply did not report any data about such removals
- Twenty-one California counties had more voter registrations than citizens over the age of 18, based on the most recent census estimates
Overall, 46 California counties reported deleting either a few registrations or none at all under the NVRA’s change of address provisions, or failing to provide any data at all. More than 14 million people are registered to vote in these 46 counties.
The notice letter sent to Illinois states:
- In Illinois’ responses to the EAC’s survey, 23 Illinois counties reported removing fewer than 15—and, in almost half of those counties, zero—voter registrations from November 2020 to November 2022 for failing to respond to an address confirmation notice and failing to vote in two consecutive general federal elections
- Thirty-four Illinois jurisdictions simply did not report any data about such removals
- Fifteen Illinois jurisdictions have more voter registrations than citizens of voting age
Under the NVRA’s change of address removal procedures, 57 Illinois counties either reported deleting 15 or less registrations or failed to provide any data at all. Over five million people are registered to vote in these 57 counties.
“Dirty voter rolls increase the potential for voter fraud,” the judicial watchdog notes. “As Washington, DC’s, quick cleanup of tens of thousands of names in response to us shows, there are potentially hundreds of thousands of names on the voter rolls that should be removed by California and Illinois. Indeed, our litigation resulted in the removal of four million names from voter rolls in various states recently.”
