Los Angeles County elections officials have removed 1.2 million ineligible “inactive” voters from the county’s voter rolls as part of a legal settlement with a conservative advocacy group.
Judicial Watch, which highlights transparency and integrity issues in government, last month announced the settlement of a lawsuit with the L.A. County Registrar Recorder/County Clerk’s Office. The county agency had failed to follow provisions of the federal National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), the group’s complaint said.
Under the NVRA, voters who fail to vote in two federal elections have to be removed from the voter rolls, according to Judicial Watch, and the county had allowed 20% of the names on its voter rolls to become inactive without removing them from the rolls.
“This long overdue voter roll clean-up of 1.2 million registrations in Los Angeles County is a historic victory and means California elections are less at risk for fraud,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in a prepared statement. “Building on this success, Judicial Watch will continue its lawsuits and activism to clean up voter rolls and to promote and protect cleaner elections.”
In the group’s federal lawsuit, Judicial Watch argued that noncompliance with NVRA undermines the confidence voters have in the election process and creates fears that legitimate votes will be countered by fraudulent or ineligible ballots.
The spokesman for the county registrar recorder noted that provisions of the NVRA were reinterpreted in a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision and that the legal settlement reflects how the county agreed to comply with the reinterpretation.
“In settling the lawsuit, all parties agreed the county maintains a good-faith interpretation of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) requirements, state law and federal law regarding voter file maintenance,” Mike Sanchez said in an email to the Southern California Record.
Voter records are inactivated when a mailing is found to be undeliverable or there is a lapse in voter activity, according to Sanchez. To guard against voter disenfranchisement, such records are maintained but not as part of an active voter file, he said.
“The settlement and reinterpretation of NVRA will not negatively impact our electorate or deny any eligible voters the ability to vote,” Sanchez said.