Right-Wing Legal Group With Ties to DOJ Official Targets State Voter Rolls

The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) — an anti-voting legal group known for filing lawsuits challenging state’s voter list maintenance practices — is targeting voter rolls in several states.

In recent letters sent to state election officials in Maine, New Jersey, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, PILF Research Director Logan Churchwell alleges each state’s voter rolls contain mass inaccuracies — in the form of duplicate and deceased registrants — and requests meetings to discuss PILF’s findings. In each letter, Churchwell said that the “findings are not intended to be exhaustive,” and Democracy Docket cannot independently verify the accuracy of PILF’s findings.

PILF’s most recent letter was sent Monday to the North Carolina State Board of Elections’ newly appointed Republican executive director, Sam Hayes. In it, Churchwell offers to help with the state’s freshly launched voter roll program that could disenfranchise tens of thousands of voters. 

“I am writing with the goal of scheduling a meeting to discuss our recent, sampled review of North Carolina’s voter registration and voting data,” Churchwell wrote. “Given the State Board’s recently announced Registration Repair initiative, our data should prove helpful in backfilling missing data.”

In PILF’s letter to Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows (D), Churchwell claimed to have found nearly 1,500 instances of duplicated and triplicated registrants. PILF’s letter comes after the Maine GOP falsely accused dozens of voters of dual voting in the 2024 election. Bellows’ office investigated and cleared the voters of the allegations.

“Anyone with concerns or evidence of improper voting should bring those to the appropriate authorities at the Department of Secretary of State, and we will investigate appropriately as we have always done in accordance with our oath to the Constitution,” Bellows said in a statement after her office cleared the allegations brought by the Maine GOP. “It’s not only unfair to the individuals wrongly accused but also an insult to the hardworking state and local election officials to make false accusations of criminal activity.”

PILF’s recent inquiries follow a rash of letters from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) to at least 19 states demanding access to sensitive voter registration data, or to set up a meeting with state election officials for a potential information sharing agreement. Each of PILF’s letters to Maine, New Jersey, North Carolina and Pennsylvania election officials have been copied to Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon and Maureen Riordan, the acting chief of the DOJ’s voting section. Prior to her appointment at the DOJ, Riordan was a lawyer at PILF.