From EPEC Team Newsletter:
Virginia does not appear among the latest lawsuits by DOJ’s Civil Rights division against states to compel voter-roll maintenance records. Did VA finally respond to the DOJ’s letter?
The Department of Justice has filed six new lawsuits against blue states over their refusal to comply with voter-list transparency requirements under federal statutes.
The action brings to 14 the number of states facing litigation to compel compliance with election laws. Virginia appears not to be among the states being sued.
The Civil Rights Division’s latest lawsuits are against Delaware, Maryland, New Mexico, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington for failing to produce full statewide voter registration lists as the DOJ requested earlier this year.
The latest lawsuits follow litigation earlier this year to compel transparency in voter-list maintenance requests against California, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Oregon, and Pennsylvania.
The DOJ also reached a settlement with North Carolina’s Board of Elections to address over 100,000 illegal registrations on its voter rolls.
Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights Harmeet J. Dhillon told Just the News on Wednesday that “her office is now on track to force through litigation, settlement or voluntary efforts at least 26 states to clean up voter rolls.”
Dhillon also told JTN in its news broadcast:
“We are close to reaching resolution, voluntary cooperation with another dozen states, and I won’t say which those are, but I think we will definitely let the public know when that happens,” she added. “We have voluntary cooperation from four states, and we reached a settlement in a consent decree with the state of North Carolina.”
Virginia Got a Letter, Too
Not among the lawsuits (so far at least) is Virginia’s Department of Elections (ELECT), which received a request for information from the DOJ’s Civil Rights division in July.
Among the questions in the DOJ’s letter:
“Please provide a list of all duplicate registrants who were removed from the statewide voter registration list. If they were merged or linked with another record, please provide that information.”
“Please explain what actions Virginia is taking to identify duplicate registrations and to remove those duplicates from the voter registration list.”
EPEC Team has a query out with ELECT asking for information about their response to the DOJ’s request for information.
The DOJ had no comment in response to a query from EPEC Team over whether Virginia is cooperating on its voter-list data requests.
During a presentation to a Privileges and Elections (P&E) committee “Boot Camp” before the Virginia Assembly (recorded on Nov. 20), Commissioner Beals presented slides explaining how the state manages its inputs to the statewide voter database (“VERIS”).
For example:
No one on the committee asked her whether ELECT had yet responded to the July 15th letter from DOJ about its list-maintenance procedures.
As for states not cooperating with the DOJ’s oversight of federal election statutes, the lawsuits are asking federal courts to declare them in violation of Title III of the Civil Rights Act.
The federal lawsuits also ask courts to compel hold-out states to provide computerized statewide voter registration lists “with all fields, including each registrant’s full name, date of birth, residential address, and either their state driver’s license number, or the last four digits of their Social Security number as required by 52 U.S.C. § 21083; and awards such additional relief as the interests of justice may require.”
It notes:
The Attorney General is uniquely charged by Congress with the enforcement of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and the Help America Vote Act (HAVA), which were designed by Congress to ensure that states have proper and effective voter registration and voter list maintenance programs.
The Attorney General also has the Civil Rights Act of 1960 (CRA) at her disposal to demand the production, inspection, and analysis of the statewide voter registration lists.
As EPEC Team has reported, the DOJ has election integrity cops back on the beat, after years of all but ignoring states’ duty to maintain accurate voter rolls.
At the forefront are basic requests to review states’ voter rolls to ensure they are being maintained according to federal statute — and are removing ineligible noncitizens.
This is standard, follow-the-law stuff under Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), and the Help America Vote Act (HAVA).
But removing ineligible registrations, and ensuring noncitizens are off the rolls, bring howls of voter suppression claims from the left — despite wide access to voter registration across states thanks to the NVRA (“Motor Voter”) statute. In the latest examples, many of the states have outright refused to observe their legal duties.
The latest DOJ effort to compel transparency signals an era of accountability in states that now automatically mail absentee by-mail ballots, often to outdated voter lists, whether individuals requested one or not.
“The sloppiness of the elections in blue states is no accident,” Dhillon told John Solomon during his Just The News broadcast Wednesday. “It is on purpose. It is a feature, not a bug.”
In a statement announcing the latest lawsuits, Attorney General Pamela Bondi said:
“Accurate voter rolls are the cornerstone of fair and free elections, and too many states have fallen into a pattern of noncompliance with basic voter roll maintenance. The Department of Justice will continue filing proactive election integrity litigation until states comply with basic election safeguards.”
The DOJ’s progress since March also aligns with President Donald Trump’s Executive Order 14248, “Preserving and Protecting the Integrity of American Elections.”
EPEC’s August letter to Commissioner Beals about duplicate registrations and noncitizens with voting history is here.
Related Stories:
Potential Duplicate Registrations in VA Voter List
DOJ’s Election-Security Cops Are Back on the Beat