Judicial Watch: Federal Courts in California and Illinois Advance Lawsuits to Clean Up Dirty Voter Rolls

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that federal courts in California and Illinois separately ruled this week that Judicial Watch lawsuits may proceed against those states to force them to clean up their voter rolls.

Judicial Watch lawsuits allege that both California and Illinois violated the National Voter Registration Act, which 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.

In California, Judicial Watch and the Libertarian Party of California sued after uncovering a broad failure to clean up voter rolls in dozens of California counties. The amended complaint details that, in correspondence with Judicial Watch, California admitted that 21 counties removed five or fewer registrations in a two-year period pursuant to a key provision of federal law. Sixteen counties removed zero such registrations during that period (Judicial Watch Inc. and the Libertarian Party of CA v. Shirley Weber et al. (No. 2:24-cv-03750).

Judicial Watch and two political organizations, Breakthrough Ideas and Illinois Family Action, and registered voter Carol Davis, sued after alleging 23 counties, with a combined 980,089 registered voters, reported removing a combined total of just 100 voter registrations under a key provision of federal law over the past two-year period (Judicial Watch Inc. et al. v. Illinois State Board of Elections et al. (No. 1:24-cv-01867)).

In both cases, the judges allowed the lawsuits to continue.

“The voter rolls in Illinois and California are a mess and these court decisions allow our Judicial Watch legal team to proceed in court to clean them up,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said. “The stakes are high—as there are potentially millions of ineligible names on the voter rolls in these two states.”

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. Robert Popper, a Judicial Watch senior attorney, leads its election law program. Popper was previously in the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, where he managed voting rights investigations, litigations, consent decrees, and settlements in dozens of states.

Judicial Watch announced in May that its work led to the removal of more than five million ineligible names from voter rolls nationwide.

Recently, the Commonwealth of Kentucky reported that 735,000 ineligible voter registrations had been removed from its voter rolls since 2019 by the State Board of Elections as part of its 2018 consent decree settling a lawsuit by Judicial Watch. 

As part of its 2022 settlement, New York City alone has removed 918,139 ineligible names from its rolls. Recent data show 477,056 removals between March 2023 and February 2025, which is in addition to the 441,083 previously reported removals.

In July, Judicial Watch filed its opening brief to the Supreme Court of the United States in a case filed on behalf of Congressman Mike Bost and two presidential electors, who are before the court to vindicate their standing to challenge an Illinois law extending Election Day for 14 days beyond the date established by federal law (Rep. Michael J. Bost, Laura Pollastrini, and Susan Sweeney v. The Illinois State Board of Elections and Bernadette Matthews (No. 1:22-cv-02754, 23-2644, 24-568)).

In June, Judicial Watch announced that the U.S. Department of Justice filed a statement of interest in Judicial Watch’s lawsuit that calls on Oregon’s secretary of state to make “a reasonable effort to remove” the registrations of ineligible registrants from the voter rolls as required by federal law (Judicial Watch, et al. v. The State of Oregon et al. (No. 6:24-cv-01783)). 

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