Latest news with #NationalVoterRegistrationActof1993
UPI
16 hours ago
- Politics
- UPI
Orange County, Calif., registrar sued over non-citizen voter records
June 25 (UPI) -- Orange County (Calif.) Registrar of Voters Robert Page has unlawfully refused to provide complete records showing the removal of non-citizens from voter registration lists, the Department of Justice says. The DOJ on Wednesday accused Page of refusing to provide records showing the removal of non-citizens from voter registration records in violation of federal election laws. The DOJ filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for Central California in Los Angeles and named Page as the sole defendant. The DOJ accuses Page of violating the Help America Vote Act of 2002 and the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which require him to maintain voter lists and disclose them. "Voting by non-citizens is a federal crime, and states and counties that refuse to disclose all requested voter information are in violation of well-established federal elections laws," Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon said Wednesday in a news release. "Removal of non-citizens from the state's voter rolls is critical to ensuring that the state's voter rolls are accurate and that elections in California are conducted without fraudulent voting," Dhillon said. "The Department of Justice will hold jurisdictions that refuse to comply with federal voting laws accountable," he added. The lawsuit arises from a June 2 complaint that Attorney General Pam Bondi received from the family member of a "non-citizen" in Orange County. The complaint says the "non-citizen" received a mail-in ballot that the person did not request but allegedly was sent by Page. Maureen Riordan, Acting Chief of the DOJ's Civil Rights Division's Voting Section, on the same day asked Page to provide records dating from Jan. 1, 2020, to the present and showing the cancellations of voter registration records due to respective individuals not being U.S. citizens. Riordan also asked for records for the same period that show the respective voter registration applications, registration records, voting histories and related correspondences for each cancelled voter registration. The DOJ said Page responded to Bondi's request on June 16 by providing records that redacted state driver's license and ID card numbers, social security numbers, state-assigned voter ID numbers, language preferences and images of each person's signatures. Page "relied upon several California statutes as the basis for the redactions," the DOJ said. The DOJ a day later notified Page that the documents he provided make it impossible to accurately assess compliance with federal election laws due to the redactions. The DOJ also notified Page that his reliance on state law to prevent the DOJ from receiving the requested information is pre-empted by federal law. Federal law requires Page to "maintain for at least two years ... all records concerning the implementation of programs and activities conducted for the purpose of ensuring the accuracy and currency of official lists of eligible voters," according to the DOJ. Page on Monday, through Assistant Orange County Attorney James Steinmann, confirmed he won't provide the unredacted records that were requested by the DOJ, the lawsuit alleges. The DOJ accuses Page of one count each of violating the HAVA and NVRA and asks the court to provide the unredacted information sought by Bondi and others in the Justice Department. Orange County officials declined to comment on the matter due to the "pending or ongoing litigation."
Yahoo
11-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Saline County clerk begins process of assuring accuracy of voter roll
A voter receives an "I voted" sticker after casting their ballot in 2022. (Photo by) Saline County voters will soon receive notices from the county clerk's office asking them to confirm their voter registration address or informing them their registrations have been canceled. 'We want to make sure voters understand that these mailings are not spam or scams — they are an important part of the federally mandated process to maintain an accurate and secure voter roll,' Saline County Clerk Doug Curtis said in a press release. Election integrity has been at the forefront of recent meetings of the State Board of Election Commissioners and was the subject of at least one legislative hearing last year. The Saline County mailings are being sent via a third-party vendor as part of routine voter registration list maintenance required by the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, according to the press release. The process is intended to remove duplicate registrations and ineligible voters from the voter roll. Voters may receive either a yellow confirmation postcard or a green cancellation postcard, the press release said. Voters who didn't vote in the most recent general election will receive the yellow notices, which means they will be moved from active to inactive voting status on the registration roster. Inactive status does not remove the person from the rolls, and they will still be eligible to vote without having to re-register, the press release said. Voters who didn't participate in the last two general elections will receive the green cancellation notices. Those voters' status moves from inactive to removable, which means they are no longer registered and must register again to be able to vote. 'Voters who receive one of these postcards should follow the instructions and respond promptly to ensure their registration status is accurate,' Curtis said. Voters with questions may contact the Saline County Clerk's Office at (501) 303-5630. For more information on voter registration or upcoming elections, visit or follow the Saline County Clerk's Office on social media. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
06-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Lyman launches lawsuit claiming Utah is violating national election transparency law
Former gubernatorial candidate Phil Lyman launched another legal battle against Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson on Friday, alleging that Utah voter privacy laws violate federal statute and demanding that he receive access to state voter registration information. The organization representing Lyman, the Public Interest Legal Foundation, a national nonprofit firm focused on election transparency, said they filed the lawsuit on Friday morning in the Utah District of the United States District Court. During his race against Utah Gov. Spencer Cox, Lyman filed a number of unsuccessful lawsuits, including one he filed by himself asking the Utah Supreme Court — and then the U.S. Supreme Court — to overturn the results of his 2024 election loss to Cox in the primary and general contests. 'I'm not interested in election integrity because I ran for governor, I ran for governor because I'm interested in election integrity,' Lyman said Friday. Lyman was joined by around 150 supporters on the south steps of Utah Capitol Building who repeatedly made statements about Lyman being 'cheated' out of an election and Lyman being the rightful governor of the state of Utah. But whereas Lyman has spent the past year making unsubstantiated allegations of corruption against Henderson, the lawsuit filed Friday takes a narrow approach that the Public Interest Legal Foundation has used several times before to win cases across the country. 'This isn't about the lieutenant governor; this is about the Utah statute that doesn't comply with federal law,' Chris Adams, the president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, told the Deseret News. Utah law allows voters to make their voter registration information private and unavailable for public information requests. Only government employees acting in their official capacity and political parties can access this information. Utah law also classifies the voter registration records of some 'protected individuals' as 'withheld,' meaning it cannot be accessed by political parties; only government employees acting in their official capacity. This designation applies to voters who are public figures, law enforcement officers, members of the armed forces, victims of domestic violence, those with a protection order, and all those who had already opted for their information to be private before the 'withheld' designation was created in 2020. A request for voter registration rolls from Nov. 3, 2020, revealed that nearly 34% of the 610,000 voter registration records in Salt Lake County had either 'private' status (16%) or were 'withheld' (18%), according to the lawsuit. Lyman's lawsuit, obtained by the Deseret News, argues that Utah's opt-in privacy designations, and expanded 'withheld' category from 2020 — which are both unique in the United States — are illegal under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993. The 32-year-old law requires state DMVs to provide voter registration when individuals obtain a driver's license. But it also mandates that states create a process for members of the public to inspect all 'voter list maintenance records,' including the final statewide voter registration database. 'No other state in the country does what Utah does and block public records from the public simply by marking a box that 40% of the people have hidden records,' Adams told the Deseret News. 'No state in the country even comes close to them.' The case does not allege any 'malfeasance' by state officials, Adams clarified. It argues that the state law allowing for increased voter privacy should never have been passed because, under the Supremacy Clause of the Constitution, federal statute trumps state authority. The lawsuit states that Lyman reached out to the Lieutenant Governor's Office in September seeking access to the complete statewide voter registration database 'pursuant to the National Voter Registration Act.' Lyman allegedly never received a response. Following a subsequent request in October, Lyman was allegedly directed toward the public version of the statewide voter roll but was denied full access because of the state law. On March 7, the Public Interest Legal Foundation on behalf of Lyman, notified Henderson that they believed she was in violation of the National Voter Registration Act, and that they would file a lawsuit if the state did not comply within 90 days. 'The Office of the Lieutenant Governor has received letters from the Public Interest Legal Foundation. We're working through their requests and will respond according to law,' the lieutenant governor's spokesperson told the Deseret News in a statement. 'We've evaluated state election and privacy law, and the NVRA, and are confident in our compliance with both.' The statement continues: 'While our office does not comment on pending or active litigation, we have not been served a lawsuit and, according to the latest correspondence with PILF and according to the NVRA, the office has until mid August to respond to the requests and to address the concerns raised. The office will submit responses within that statutory timeline.' Over the past few years, the Public Interest Legal Foundation, based out of Alexandria, Virginia, has won a number of lawsuits focused on compliance with the National Voter Registration Act, including in Illinois, Maine and Maryland. They have also experienced victories, which have been appealed, in ongoing cases in Hawaii, South Carolina, Minnesota and Wisconsin. If Lyman's lawsuit is successful, Utah's voter privacy statute would be struck down. The lawsuit also asks the judge to order Henderson to give Lyman 'the full and complete Statewide Voter Registration List, including registrations classified as 'private' or improperly classified as 'withheld.'' This would include the names, addresses, contact information and voter registration dates for all Utah voters except for those who have applied for 'withheld' status since the designation was created in 2020, according to Adams. 'We do this all over the country. We don't lose these cases on the merits,' Adams said. In every state where it obtains voter registration information, the Public Interest Legal Foundation then also conducts a review looking for voter roll issues. A Utah legislative audit report released in December identified 1,400 deceased voters who were still on Utah voter rolls. Of these individuals, 700 likely received ballots and two cast a vote in the November 2023 election. The audit also found 300 duplicate records and 450 records where multiple people were apparently registered using the same driver's license number. 'We identified voters who appeared to cast ballots inappropriately in each of these areas of analysis,' the audit said.
Yahoo
30-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
No, a Judge Is Not Preventing Trump From Enforcing Election Law
Federal and state law have long prohibited noncitizens from voting in U.S. federal elections. Nonetheless, in a March 25 executive order seeking to tighten election security laws, President Donald Trump included a provision requiring that prospective voters show proof of citizenship to cast a ballot in federal elections. On April 24, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly temporarily blocked the provision, ruling that the president likely 'lacks the authority' to unilaterally impose the nationwide requirement. Later that day, White House deputy chief of staff and homeland security adviser Stephen Miller claimed that Kollar-Kotelly's ruling barred the Trump administration from enforcing laws that make it illegal for noncitizens to vote in federal elections. 'It is a CRIME for non-citizens to vote but a single federal judge says President Trump cannot enforce this law,' Miller tweeted. 'An act of pure sabotage against citizenry and democracy.' That is not what Kollar-Kotelly ruled. The president can use executive authority to enforce federal bans on noncitizen voting, but as Kollar-Kotelly wrote in her opinion, that doesn't permit the president to issue new regulations—without congressional approval—dictating how states conduct elections. When asked to clarify Miller's tweet—and explain why he said the ruling prevents Trump from enforcing laws against noncitizen voting—Harrison Fields, White House principal deputy press secretary, told The Dispatch Fact Check, 'President Trump will keep fighting for election integrity, despite Democrat objections that reveal their disdain for commonsense safeguards like verifying citizenship.' As an explainer from the Migration Policy Institute lays out, all states had banned noncitizens from voting by 1924, and Congress added penalties in 1996. Noncitizens face potential federal prison sentences just for registering to vote. Kollar-Kotelly's ruling did not stipulate that the president or his Justice Department 'cannot enforce this law,' as Miller claimed. Rather, her ruling merely paused a separate provision, requiring proof of documentary citizenship to vote, included in Trump's executive order. According to a White House fact sheet, Trump's executive order 'strengthens voter citizenship verification and bans foreign nationals from interfering in U.S. elections.' One provision of this order, Section 2(a), states that an independent, bipartisan agency—the Election Assistance Commission (EAC)—will oversee that states implement documentary proof of citizenship requirements. 'Within 30 days of the date of this order, the Election Assistance Commission shall take appropriate action to require, in its national mail voter registration form … documentary proof of United States citizenship.' Under what authority can the president make such a move? The White House cited two statutory laws: the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA) and the Help American Voters Act of 2002 (HAVA). NVRA, which took effect in 1995, established a uniform federal voter registration form for all 50 states. The legislation tasked the Federal Election Commission (FEC) with developing the federal form, created in part to avoid disparities among each state's voter registration process. In 2002, Congress through HAVA took that responsibility away from the FEC and transferred it to a new agency the legislation created, the EAC. For a change in the federal voter registration to be approved, three of the EAC's four commissioners would have to sign on. More than a dozen groups—10 nonpartisan, nonprofit organizations, plus four groups affiliated with the Democratic party—along with Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Democratic House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, sued the Trump administration on April 1 and argued the president overstepped the bounds of executive authority. Their core legal claim: neither NVRA or HAVA authorizes the president to require that the EAC implement documentary proof of citizenship qualifications, and the Constitution gives the president no authority to dictate state election processes. Kollar-Kotelly ruled in a 120-page opinion that 'this separation-of-powers argument is substantially likely to succeed on the merits,' and issued a preliminary injunction temporarily blocking the documentary proof of citizenship requirements from taking effect until the court rules on the broader merits of the case. The Trump administration presented two primary arguments countering the legal challenge brought before them. For starters, the White House argued, the president's order didn't instruct or require the EAC to implement the documentary proof of citizenship—rather, it was a mere suggestion. In the administration's view, the EAC was free to adopt or reject that suggestion, making any legal challenge speculative and bound to fail on the merits. The administration also argued that the president has a constitutional duty to enforce the law, including the security of federal elections. Therefore, in creating documentary proof-of-citizenship requirements, Trump was fulfilling his constitutional duty to 'take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.' Kollar-Kotelly found neither of the administration's arguments compelling. 'First, the President has no constitutional duty to prescribe the content of election regulations,' she ruled. 'Second, any restriction on the President's ability to set the content of election regulation does not impair his ability to 'take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed.'' To begin, she rejects the White House's premise that the executive order made no clear requirements, and that any changes were merely speculative. 'This account cannot be squared with the plain text of the Executive Order,' Kollar-Kotelly wrote. 'In short, there is no mystery about what Section 2(a) purports to require or whether Section 2(a) purports to require it.' The second argument presented by the administration resembles Miller's assertion: the law stipulates that noncitizens cannot vote in federal elections, and the president has a duty to uphold that law, so Trump has 'plenary authority' to direct the EAC to 'enforce the law' by updating voter registration processes. Kollar-Kotelly rejected this argument for two reasons. The first is that the administration first presented this argument at oral hearings. Yet, unless there are 'exceptional circumstances,' arguments that are not included in legal briefs and not mentioned until oral arguments are 'forfeited.' 'The Court could end its analysis of this argument there,' Kollar-Kotelly wrote. But, she explained, even ignoring that legal technicality, the administration's reasoning is still lacking. The president's authority to enforce the law does not vest him with lawmaking authority, she noted. In fact, when Congress criminalized noncitizen voting in federal elections, it specified how it expected the executive to enforce the law—through prosecution, not new laws. Trump 'has no constitutional duty to set regulations unless instructed to do so by Congress,' Kollar-Kotelly wrote. Moreover, Congress did not create the EAC to be used as a law-enforcing tool available at the president's disposal. 'The President has no constitutional power over election regulation that would support this unilateral exercise of authority,' Kollar-Kotelly wrote. 'The Constitution vests that power in the States and Congress alone.' While it's true that Congress did authorize the EAC to oversee a uniform federal form for all 50 states to follow in NVRA and HAVA, neither piece of legislation extended such authority to the president. 'Critically, Congress has never assigned any responsibility for the content of the Federal Form to the President or to any other individual in the Executive Branch with the power to act unilaterally,' Kollar-Kotelly explained. 'The power to alter the Federal Form is—and always has been—delegated solely to a bipartisan, independent commission with a duty to make changes only 'in consultation with the chief election officers of the States.'' If you have a claim you would like to see us fact check, please send us an email at factcheck@ If you would like to suggest a correction to this piece or any other Dispatch article, please email corrections@
Yahoo
14-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Voting rights groups say SAVE Act would disenfranchise voters
Richard Arlin WalkerSpecial to ICT A person registering today to vote attests on the application that he or she is a U.S. citizen. Lying is a federal crime punishable by fines and jail time. If the applicant is awaiting citizenship and lies on the form, they blow their chance at citizenship and face members of Congress say attesting under penalty of perjury is not enough. But voter rights groups, legal centers and public policy nonprofits say a bill passed by Congress on April 9 would deprive millions of rural and Native Americans, particularly those in Alaska and Arizona, of the right to vote.H.R. 22, also known as the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, or SAVE Act, would amend the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 and require individuals to provide proof of U.S. citizenship – in person – to register to vote in federal elections. The Senate must still approve the SAVE Act; similar legislation introduced last year failed to the bill's progress at and 22 would require a voter registration applicant to present a valid U.S. passport or a photo identification card issued by a federal, state or tribal government showing that the applicant's place of birth is in the United the government-issued photo ID doesn't include place of birth, the individual also would have to present a certified birth certificate; an extract from a hospital record; or a final adoption decree showing a United States birthplace; a report of a U.S. citizen's birth abroad issued by the Secretary of State; or a naturalization certificate or certificate of citizenship issued by the Secretary of Homeland Security.A member of the U.S. Armed Forces could show a military ID card with a military record of service showing the applicant's say the requirements are onerous.'It's difficult for rural folks to get their birth certificates, and those offices are open only for a certain amount of time,' said Mike Williams Sr., a Yup'ik chief and resident of the Kuskokwim River community of Akiak. 'I have my passport and my tribal ID, but my wife is trying to get her birth certificate and so far can't. And they are requiring street addresses in rural areas where many of them don't have street addresses. They won't accept a Post Office box address.'I think this administration is messing around with trying to get voters not registered,' he said. Michelle Sparck, Qissunamiut Tribe of Chevak, is director of Get Out the Native Vote, a statewide voter education nonprofit based in Anchorage under the Cook Inlet Tribal Council.'Only three of the five hubs in Western Alaska have a DMV office, with five contracted services in Region IV – Western Alaska and Arctic – to meet the identification criteria of the SAVE Act and over 37,000 voters in 104 precincts,' Sparck told ICT. 'There are no Social Security or passport services in Region IV. Getting a copy of your birth certificate involves choppy mail service or a costly trip to an urban office.'All villages rely on P.O. boxes for government and tribal services. FedEx, UPS and even Amazon orders end up at the Post Office or at a contracted space and honor system to collect your orders.'Jacqueline De Leon, Isleta Pueblo, is senior staff attorney for the Native American Rights Fund. She told ICT the SAVE Act 'would be really detrimental to Native voters' and pointed to two provisions she sees as problematic.'The first is, it says that tribal IDs are accepted, but really there's a poison pill in that because it requires the ID to have the proof of location of birth. And to our knowledge, we don't know of any tribal IDs that have the location of birth on the ID,' she said.'And then the other is this big push that ballots have to arrive by Election Day. That's super problematic in our rural communities. In places like Alaska, they've got notoriously long mail [delays] because of acts of God and weather that can't be controlled. Delays are inevitable. Mail delivery routes in Arizona and Alaska are particularly slow.'The SAVE Act, De Leon said, 'would really disproportionately impact and disenfranchise voters.'What's driving this legislation are claims by President Donald Trump and his allies that large numbers of non-citizens are voting or registering to vote in U.S. elections.'It should not be controversial to say that only American citizens should determine the direction of our country through the process of voting,' U.S. Rep. Josh Brecheen, a Republican from are a Oklahoma – one of four Native American members of Congress – said in July 2024 in support of an earlier version of the SAVE Act.'The only reason Democrats and President Biden oppose this commonsense legislation is because they want millions of illegal aliens to vote so they can stay in power. House Republicans are taking action to ensure America's elections are safe and secure.'Claims such as Brecheen's, however, have been repeatedly found to be without merit. Trump's claims of widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election were determined by several courts to be unfounded.'Politicians at all levels of government have repeatedly, and falsely, claimed the 2016, 2018 and 2020 elections were marred by large numbers of people voting illegally,' the Brennan Center for Justice reports. 'However, extensive research reveals that fraud is very rare, voter impersonation is virtually nonexistent, and many instances of alleged fraud are, in fact, mistakes by voters or administrators.'The Center for American Progress – a public policy institute whose board members include former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro and Clinton White House Chief of Staff John Podesta – said the SAVE Act could be problematic for female voters as well.'As many as 69 million women who have taken their spouse's name do not have a birth certificate matching their legal name, and millions of transgender Americans do not possess these documents reflecting the name they use,' the center reported on its website.'Additionally, the in-person requirements of the bill would mean accessible voter registration systems that tens of millions of citizens, including 60 million rural Americans, rely on every election cycle would no longer be available. The SAVE Act would force some rural Americans to drive up to eight hours round trip, and even cross state lines, just to update their voter registration information.' That's already the reality in the Navajo Nation, where counties have implemented ID and address requirements that are burdensome, said Jaynie Parrish, Dine', executive director of Arizona Native Vote. 'We're already seeing much of this, but now it's proposed as legislation,' she said. A resident of Chinle tried to vote in the 2024 election but her ID had her maiden name, not her married name, 'so there were issues there,' Parrish said. Voter registration applicants who don't have a physical address are asked to provide their home's latitude and longitude and the Google Plus code, an alphanumeric code that acts as a digital address for places without formal addresses – information they may not know or know how to find, Parrish said. 'This is the way voter suppression works,' she said. 'They want you to give up at the first sign that it gets hard. They want you to give up and not make that trip or not find that paperwork. That's why it's pivotal to have groups like ours on the ground all year long, educating voters and helping them prepare as much as they can.' Voters in Apache County, which shares geography with the northeast corner of the Navajo Nation. faced other hurdles at the polls in the 2024 presidential election. Several voters showed up to vote only to learn that their polling place had been changed. The county's election equipment failed, the county ran out of emergency ballots, and 'some voters faced wait times of two to three hours, with others forced to leave without casting a ballot because of time constraints,' The Navajo Times reported. NPR reported in October 2024 that states have a series of mechanisms 'to help weed out people who are ineligible to vote before they could cast a ballot.' NPR reported: 'States, by law, are required to routinely remove ineligible or deceased voters from their rolls. And there are tools like the Electronic Registration Information Center, also known as ERIC, that help states share voter data.'Depending on the type of voting — in-person vs. mail-in — there are also a host of protections that would keep someone from casting a ballot that isn't theirs, or from voting altogether if they are ineligible. That includes things like signature matching, dropbox surveillance, as well as poll worker training.'Even data collected by the Heritage Foundation, the think tank that pulled together Project 2025, failed to prove widespread voter a study of presidential and congressional elections dating back to the mid-1980s, Heritage Foundation found 36 ineligible voters cast ballots in Arizona – of a total 42.6 million ballots cast. During that same time frame, ineligible voters cast 23 ballots of the 64.7 million cast in Georgia; ineligible voters cast 19 ballots of the 64.5 million cast in Michigan; ineligible voters cast eight ballots of the 8.5 million cast in Nevada; ineligible voters cast 58 ballots of the 81.6 million ballots cast in North Carolina; ineligible voters cast 39 ballots of the 100.5 million cast in Pennsylvania; and ineligible voters cast 69 ballots of the 45.3 million cast in all voters were non-citizens; several were U.S. citizens who were convicted of felonies and had not had their voting rights restored.'Voter fraud is serious, which is why there are many protections built into the system to protect against fraud,' The Brookings Institution, a nonprofit research organization, reported. 'The bottom line — whether it's vote fraud or government fraud — facts matter, and isolated instances of fraud do not constitute a widespread trend.' Our stories are worth telling. 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