The State of California settled a lawsuit with the Election Integrity Project California (EIPCa) Friday and has agreed to remove as many as 1.5 million inactive registrants from the Los Angeles County voter rolls.
EIPCa filed suit against the state in August 2017 and alleged that California was not “following the requirements of Section 8 of the 1993 National Voter Registration Act (NVRA),” which requires states to reasonably maintain state and county voter registration rolls.
According to EIPCa, the settlement means that Los Angeles County Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk Dean Logan (pictured above) must immediately begin following federal mandates for “identifying and removing deceased, moved, and other ineligible registrants,” which is estimated to be as many as 1.5 million.
The U.S. Census Bureau reports that Los Angeles County has a population of 10.1 million, and 5.2 million are registered voters, according to Logan’s office. That means up to 28.8 percent – nearly a third – of registered voters in Los Angeles County were ineligible registrants.
“Because of the powerful and overwhelming evidence provided by EIPCa, this was an exceptionally strong case,” Linda Paine, president of EIPCa, said in a press release late Friday. “California’s voter rolls are unforgivably bloated, a situation that invites voter impersonation and fraud.”
Friday’s settlement also requires California Secretary of State Alex Padilla to ensure that each County Registrar in the state follows federal mandates for identifying and removing ineligible registrants.
EIPCa attributes California’s lack of compliance to the Clinton administration, whose Department of Justice “gave California a pass on following the NVRA voter roll maintenance mandate.”
“The result was that California was not held accountable for failure to maintain its voter lists for over twenty years. It is no wonder that California’s voter rolls are in the deplorable condition they have been shown to be by EIPCa,” Friday’s press release stated, calling the settlement a “colossal win.”
“By bringing California, the most populous state in the union, into legal compliance with respect to its unmaintained voter rolls, the settlement, when performed, will have a major impact across the nation,” it concludes.
Read the full Settlement Agreement:
[pdf-embedder url=”https://theminnesotasun.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/EIP-CA_Settlement_Agreement_As_Signed_12_31_2018.pdf”]
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Anthony Gockowski is managing editor of Battleground State News and The Minnesota Sun. Follow Anthony on Twitter. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Dean Logan” by Dean Logan.
