Judicial Watch has announced that it is settling a federal election integrity lawsuit against New York City after the city removed 441,083 ineligible names from the voter rolls and promised to take reasonable steps going forward to clean its voter registration lists.
Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit in July against New York City after it failed to “clean” voter rolls for years.
The lawsuit, filed under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), pointed out that New York City removed only an improbable 22 names under the federal law over six years.
The Judicial Watch lawsuit detailed that New York City’s “own recent data concedes that there were only 22 total” removals under this provision “during a six-year period, in a city of over 5.5 million voters. These are ludicrously small numbers of removals given the sizable populations of these counties.”
Moreover, the “almost complete failure of Kings, Queens, New York, Bronx, and Richmond Counties, over a period of at least six years, to remove voters” under a key provision of federal law “means that there are untold numbers of New York City registrations for voters who are ineligible to vote at their listed address because they have changed residence or are otherwise ineligible to vote.”
The recent settlement agreement details how New York City responded to Judicial Watch’s notice about its voting roll deficiencies with a massive clean-up effort. Read details below:
- [The Board of Elections] notified Judicial Watch that, in February 2022, they removed, pursuant to Section 8(d)(1)(B) of the NVRA, 82,802 registrations in Bronx County, 128,093 in Kings County, 145,891 in New York County, 66,010 in Queens County, and 18,287 in Richmond County, for a total of 441,083 registrations.
- [The Board of Elections] notified Judicial Watch that going forward they intend to cancel registrations pursuant to Section 8(d)(1)(B) in each odd-numbered year in the months following a federal election.
- Specifically, the city also agrees to track in detail report its voter roll maintenance efforts through 2025.
- For both 2023 and 2025 … the [Board of Elections] will notify Judicial Watch … on or before March 31, by means of separate excel spreadsheets for Bronx County, Kings County, New York County, Queens County, and Richmond County, of the number of removals, including removals pursuant to … the NVRA, made during the previous two years.
- The NVRA requires states to “conduct a general program that makes a reasonable effort to remove” from the rolls “the names of ineligible voters” who have died or changed residence.
- Among other things, the law requires registrations to be cancelled when voters fail to respond to address confirmation notices and then fail to vote in the next two general federal elections.
In 2018, the Supreme Court confirmed that such removals are mandatory (Husted v. A. Philip Randolph Inst.(138 S. Ct. 1833, 1841-42 (2018)).
“This historic settlement is a major victory for New York voters who will benefit from cleaner voter rolls and more honest elections. Judicial Watch is pleased that New York City officials quickly moved to remove 441,000 outdated registrations from the rolls. We look forward to working together under this federal lawsuit settlement to ensure New York City maintains cleaner rolls for future elections.”
Tom Fitton, Judicial Watch President
Read more about the agreement reached here.
The Lemonade Mermaid Store
Unique gifts for Land or Sea Mermaids, Mer-pets and Little Mermaids!
Left: Our signature Blue Fins Earrings
