PA settles election lawsuit, removes 178k names from voter rolls.

Pennsylvania has settled a federal election integrity lawsuit with conservative legal group Judicial Watch, promising greater transparency in its future housekeeping efforts. The state has removed over 178,000 ineligible voter registrations and will publish information related to voter registration, including the total number of active voters, inactive voters, and voters removed from the voter rolls. These statistics will be published on June 30 every year on the Pennsylvania Department of State’s website for the next five years.

The federal lawsuit was originally brought in April 2020 against Pennsylvania and the counties of Bucks, Chester, and Delaware. Judicial Watch noted that the three counties removed a total of just 17 names in the most recent two-year reporting period, despite having a combined voter roll of 1.2 million.

In November 2021, Judicial Watch expanded its NVRA lawsuit, alleging that Luzerne, Cumberland, Washington, Indiana, and Carbon counties also failed to fulfill their duties to remove voters who were dead, moved away, or didn’t vote in two federal elections. The complaints prompted Pennsylvania to step up its clean-up efforts.

Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, said he welcomes the result. “This federal lawsuit settlement is good news for voters in Pennsylvania who want to ensure that only eligible voters are on voter rolls,” Fitton said in a statement. He also noted that the organization has successfully sued several states into removing over 2 million ineligible registrations in the last two years.