In July, Tom Fitton, President of Judicial Watch sent a notice letter to the Oregon secretary of state on behalf of the Constitution Party of Oregon and an Oregon registered voter, notifying them of violations of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) of 1993, based on the failure to remove inactive voters from the registration rolls. The notice letter to Oregon served as a “pre-suit” notice.

Judicial Watch announced this week it is making good on the notice and filing suit after discovering a statewide failure to clean up voter rolls. In its complaint, Judicial Watch argues that Oregon’s voter rolls contain large numbers of old, inactive registrations; and that 29 of Oregon’s 36 counties removed few or no registrations as required by federal election law. Their discovery contends that 35 of its counties had overall registration rates exceeding 100%; and that Oregon has the highest known inactive registration rate of any state in the nation.

The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Oregon, Eugene Division, to compel the defendants to comply with their voter list maintenance obligations under Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA).

The NVRA requires states to “conduct a general program that makes a reasonable effort to remove” from the official voter rolls “the names of ineligible voters” who have died or changed residence. Among other things, the NVRA requires registrations to be cancelled when voters fail to respond to address confirmation notices and then fail to vote in the next two general federal elections. In 2018, the Supreme Court confirmed that such removals are mandatory (Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Inst., 138 S. Ct. 1833, 1841-42 (2018))

Judicial Watch is a national leader in voting integrity and voting rights. As part of its work, Judicial Watch assembled a team of highly experienced voting rights attorneys, including Stephen Joncus of Joncus Law PC in Happy Valley, who stopped discriminatory elections, and cleaned up voter rolls across the country. Legal pressure from Judicial Watch ultimately led to the removal of up to four million ineligible voters from voter rolls in New York, California, Pennsylvania, Colorado, North Carolina, Kentucky, Ohio, and elsewhere.

In September, Judicial Watch presented arguments regarding a lower court ruling on Mississippi’s election law that permits absentee ballots to be received as late as five business days after Election Day. Now, the 5th Circuit Court just ruled that ballots must be received by Election Day and any state laws that allow them to be received and counted after Election Day violates federal law. This case affects Oregon’s practice giving ballots seven days to arrive.

Oregon has also been shown to have over 100% of registered voters in 35 out of its 36 counties. Oregon’s legislature has also tried to limit public access to voter lists. In July 2023 Judicial Watch filed an amicus curiae (friend of the court) brief, supporting the decision of the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine, which struck down Maine’s policy restricting the use and distribution of the state’s voter registration list. According to a national study conducted by Judicial Watch in 2020, Maine’s statewide registration rate was 101% of eligible voters.

“Dirty voter rolls can mean dirty elections,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Oregon has among the dirtiest voting rolls in America and needs to clean them up ASAP!”

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

A D V E R T I S E M E N T

This suit comes on the heels of Oregon’s DMV caught registering more than a thousand noncitizens as eligible voters. The potential is that Oregon has 218,521 noncitizens that could have done business at DMV in the past two years that have a possibility of receiving a ballot in error. Add to that dirty voter rolls of people that have moved out-of-state or died, no wonder so many counties have more than 100% registered voters, and they all were sent ballots that can be fraudulently cast by unethical people.

Any ballot not legally voted, is an opportunity to be illegally cast. Please vote, and vote early to prevent your ballot from being stolen.


--Donna Bleiler

Post Date: 2024-10-30 11:59:48

Last Update: 2024-10-30 13:47:04