A public interest law firm is threatening to bring lawsuits against more than 100 counties across the United States that appear to have more registered voters than living residents.
The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), a law firm dedicated to election integrity based in Indiana, recently sent statutory notice letters to election officials in 141 counties putting them on notice of their discoveries. The group says if action is not taken to correct the questionable voter rolls, they will bring lawsuits against every single county on the list.
"Corrupted voter rolls provide the perfect environment for voter fraud," said J. Christian Adams, president and general counsel of PILF. "Close elections tainted by voter fraud turned control of the United States Senate in 2009. Too much is at stake in 2016 to allow that to happen again."
The statutory notice letters argue the counties are violating the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and urge them to correct the issue, claiming their voter rolls contain a substantially high amount of ineligible voters. The group used federally produced data to come to their conclusions.
"Voter rolls across America have been discovered that contain substantial numbers of ineligible voters, resulting in the possible disenfranchisement of legally eligible voters via ballot dilution that threatens to subvert the nation’s electoral process," a sample letter sent to the counties reads.
"Based on our comparison of publicly available information published by the U.S. Census Bureau and the federal Election Assistance Commission, your county is failing to comply with Section 8 of the NVRA," it continues. "Federal law requires election officials to conduct a reasonable effort to maintain voter registration lists free of dead voters, ineligible voters and voters who have moved away."
"In short, your county has significantly more voters on the registration rolls than it has eligible live voters and is thus not reasonably maintaining the rolls."
According to PILF, the 141 counties targeted for their suspicious voter rolls span across 21 states and include: Michigan (24 counties), Kentucky (18), Illinois (17), Indiana (11), Alabama (10), Colorado (10), Texas (9), Nebraska (7), New Mexico (5), South Dakota (5), Kansas (4), Mississippi (4), Louisiana (3), West Virginia (3), Georgia (2), Iowa (2), Montana (2), and North Carolina (2), as well as Arizona, Missouri, and New York (1 each).
Data provided by the group also shows that some counties have voter registration rates that exceed 150 percent.
Franklin County, located in Illinois, contains the highest voter registration rate of any county on the list at 190 percent. Franklin is followed by Pulaski County, also located in Illinois. Pulaski boasts a 176 percent voter registration rate, according to the group.
Adams said former Attorney General Eric Holder and current AG Loretta Lynch refused to enforce the law because they don’t have a problem with corrupted voter rolls.
"Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch have deliberately refused to enforce this law because they have no problem with corrupted voter rolls," Christian Adams told the Washington Free Beacon in an email statement. "They don’t like the law, so they don’t enforce it. It’s a pattern that has come to characterize this Justice Department."