More than 140 Counties Busted for Having More Registered Voters Than Residents

By Michael Hausam (6 months ago) | Elections

Election officials in 141 counties spread out over 21 states received a sternly-worded letter informing them of potential legal action. Each of these counties have more registered voters than actual residents, according to the Washington Free Beacon.

Here’s an excerpt from the letter that the Public Interest Legal Foundation sent on Thursday:

I am writing on behalf of the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) to notify you that your county is in apparent violation of Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) based on our research.

The PILF is a nonpartisan, nonprofit, public-interest law firm that specializes in conducting civil litigation in high-profile matters affecting elections, voting, and other political processes of the nation and providing the public with information regarding efforts to damage the integrity of American elections.

Voter rolls across America have been discovered that contain substantial numbers of ineligible voters, resulting in the possible disenfranchisement of legally eligible voters via ballot dilution that threatens to subvert the nation’s electoral process.

Based on our comparison of publicly available information published by the U.S. Census Bureau and the federal Election Assistance Commission, your county is failing to comply with Section 8 of the NVRA. Federal law requires election officials to conduct a reasonable effort to maintain voter registration lists free of dead voters, ineligible voters and voters who have moved away, 52 U.S.C. §§ 20507(a)(4) and 21083(a)(2)(A)(ii)(I).

In short, your county has significantly more voters on the registration rolls than it has eligible live voters and is thus not reasonably maintaining the rolls.

The National Voter Registration act requires 90-day notice to be given to election officials before a lawsuit can be filed.

Michigan, Illinois, and Kentucky are the states with the greatest numbers of counties with excess voter roles – with 24, 18, and 17 counties respectively. Two counties in Illinois have the greatest discrepancy – Franklin County has 90% more registered voters than residents and Pulaski County has 76% more.

The Justice Department has responsibility for enforcing the National Voter Registration Act, but has yet to undertake any action. In a statement to the Free Beacon, J. Christian Adams, the General Counsel for the PILF explained why:

“Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch have deliberately refused to enforce this law because they have no problem with corrupted voter rolls. They don’t like the law, so they don’t enforce it. It’s a pattern that has come to characterize this Justice Department.”

At this point, there has been no official response to the warning letter.