Federal Judge Denies Right-Wing Org’s Request to Purge 277,000 Pennsylvania Voters
A federal judge rejected a right-wing organization’s request to remove over a quarter of a million allegedly ineligible individuals from Pennsylvania’s voter rolls on the eve of tomorrow’s election.
Judge Robert D. Mariani — an Obama appointee — held that the right-wing group’s assertion that over 277,000 Keystone State voters are ineligible “is without proper foundation and is purely speculative.”
This attempt would have purged 277,000 registered voters in the most influential swing state this election.
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On Oct. 29, the 1789 Foundation, also known as Citizen_AG, and a voter filed a lawsuit against Pennsylvania and Secretary of State Al Schmidt (R) claiming Schmidt failed to maintain voter rolls in line with the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).
The NVRA requires states to place voters who may no longer reside in the state on the inactive voter list if they fail to respond to a notice asking them to confirm residency. If that person does not vote in two subsequent federal election cycles, they are removed from the state’s voter list.
According to the plaintiffs, there are more than 277,000 voters who may no longer be eligible after they failed to respond to notices issued in 2020 asking them to confirm their change of residency.
Citizen_AG asked Schmidt for records of whether those individuals voted in the 2020 or 2022 elections, and was told by Schmidt’s office that it would take more than 30 days to provide the information. Schmidt’s office said it would provide the group with a final response to its request by Nov. 12.
The plaintiffs had asked the court to order Schmidt to provide the records and remove ineligible voters from the rolls before the Nov. 5 general election.
Last Friday, a federal judge in Arizona denied a similar request from Citizen_AG to remove over 1.2 million voters from the state’s voter rolls.