{"id":2618389,"date":"2026-06-24T09:02:56","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T13:02:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/judges-enable-fraud-by-hindering-federal-laws-requiring-accurate-voter-rolls\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T09:06:52","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T13:06:52","slug":"judges-enable-fraud-by-hindering-federal-laws-requiring-accurate-voter-rolls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/judges-enable-fraud-by-hindering-federal-laws-requiring-accurate-voter-rolls\/","title":{"rendered":"Judges Enable Fraud By Hindering Law About Voter Rolls\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fjudges-enable-fraud-by-hindering-federal-laws-requiring-accurate-voter-rolls%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2618389&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>The article highlights a critical issue regarding election integrity in the United States, focusing on how federal courts are misinterpreting the public disclosure provisions of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA). This misinterpretation restricts public access to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/bidenbucks-tentacles-expand-as-judge-shuts-down-lawsuit\/\" title=\"Bidenbucks&#039; Influence Grows Following ...suit Shutdown\">vital voter registration information<\/a>, enabling potential fraud and undermining trust in elections. despite the NVRA explicitly granting the public and advocacy groups the right to access all records related to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/the-new-york-times-is-very-uncomfortable-with-citizen-oversight-of-elections\/\" title=\"NYT Disapproves of Election Oversight by Citizens\">maintaining accurate voter lists<\/a>, some courts require a showing of specific harm before granting access, which contradicts the law and Supreme Court precedents.<\/p>\n<p>Empirical evidence, including studies by Pew and the Public Interest Legal Foundation, shows widespread inaccuracies in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/republicans-democrats-h-r-1-is-a-power-grab-would-undermine-states-election-rules\/\" title=\"Re...ans: Democrats\u2019 H.R. 1 Is a Power Grab, Would Undermine ...s\u2019 Election Rules\">voter registration lists<\/a>, with instances of deceased voters voting, double registrations, and votes cast by ineligible individuals.These flaws threaten election security, and current legal conflicts-specifically, differing rulings among federal appellate courts-leave the public&#8217;s ability to verify voter lists inconsistent and vulnerable to restrictions.<\/p>\n<p>The article emphasizes that the NVRA clearly provides a right to access all relevant records without limitations,and this access is crucial for ensuring election integrity. courts restricting access or use of disclosed information violate the law. The author urges the Supreme Court to resolve these jurisdictional splits and uphold the law&#8217;s intent, safeguarding the democratic process.Hans von Spakovsky, a legal expert, advocates for adherence to NVRA provisions and highlights the importance of clarity for fair, honest, and secure elections.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>There is a glaring election integrity problem that only the U.S. Supreme Court can remedy: federal courts are misinterpreting the public disclosure provision of the <a href=\"https:\/\/uscode.house.gov\/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title52-section20501&#038;num=0&#038;edition=prelim\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">National Voter Registration Act of 1993<\/a>, frustrating the intent of Congress to enlist the public\u2019s help in ensuring accurate and up-to-date voter rolls. By doing so, those courts are facilitating fraud.         <\/p>\n<p>Recent <a href=\"https:\/\/news.gallup.com\/poll\/651185\/partisan-split-election-integrity-gets-even-wider.aspx\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">polling<\/a> by Gallup shows that 43 percent of Americans are either \u201cnot at all confident\u201d or \u201cnot too confident\u201d in the security of our elections. One of the reasons is no doubt the recognized problem of sloppy registration lists. A 2012 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pew.org\/en\/research-and-analysis\/reports\/2012\/02\/14\/inaccurate-costly-and-inefficient-evidence-that-americas-voter-registration-system-needs-an-upgrade\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">study<\/a> by Pew found that 24 million, or one in eight, voter registrations in the U.S. were \u201csignificantly inaccurate.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>This is a serious indictment of state election officials, who are obviously not doing what\u2019s necessary to ensure those rolls are accurate. Inaccurate voter rolls can lead to fraud that endangers the integrity of the election process. A 2020 <a href=\"https:\/\/publicinterestlegal.org\/research\/critical-condition-american-voter-rolls-filled-with-errors-dead-voters-and-duplicate-registrations\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">study<\/a> by the Public Interest Legal Foundation that compared voter registration lists and voter histories from 42 states found more than 144,000 instances of potentially fraudulent voting during the 2016 and 2018 elections.<\/p>\n<p>That included 14,608 deceased-but-registered voters who cast ballots; more than 81,000 voters registered twice at the same address who cast two votes; almost 8,400 individuals who voted twice because they were registered in two different states; 5,500 voters who cast two ballots because they were registered twice in the same state but at different addresses; and 34,000 individuals who cast ballots despite being registered at nonresidential addresses ranging from commercial establishments to vacant lots and parks.<\/p>\n<p>But there is currently a split in the federal courts of appeal over whether the public and organizations concerned with election integrity have standing \u2014 that is, the ability to file a lawsuit \u2014 under the National Voter Registration Act to pursue claims against states that refuse to provide access to voter registration information, restrict the use of such information, or impose criminal and civil penalties for \u201cmisuse\u201d of that information. The disagreement among the appellate courts means that the federal rights of voters and advocacy groups depend on where they live.<\/p>\n<h2>Violating the NVRA<\/h2>\n<p>The courts ruling against the public are just flat-out wrong. The NVRA <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/uscode\/text\/52\/20507\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">makes<\/a> \u201cavailable to the public\u201d all state records of \u201cprograms and activities conducted for the purpose of ensuring the accuracy and currency of official lists of eligible voters.\u201d Moreover, the NVRA <a href=\"https:\/\/www.law.cornell.edu\/uscode\/text\/52\/20510\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">says<\/a> any person \u201caggrieved by a violation\u201d of the NVRA can \u201cbring a civil action \u2026 for declaratory or injunctive relief.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In other words, the NVRA not only provides standing to the public to litigate over violations of the law, it also mandates that states make available for public inspection \u2014 without limitation \u2014 all records involved in ensuring the accuracy of \u201cofficial lists of eligible voters.\u201d When states refuse to turn over voter registration information, they are violating the law and the very reason why Congress put these provisions into the NVRA.<\/p>\n<p>A Senate report on the NVRA emphasized that \u201can <a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >effective national voter registration program<\/a> must also include a private civil enforcement\u2026 [which] can encourage action to assure that reasonable effort is undertaken to achieve its objectives in all States and, indeed, it may be essential to the success of such a program.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The NVRA created a <em>right<\/em> to know, yet some courts are requiring that the public show a <em>need<\/em> to know and explain how they are going to use the information before they can assert a claim for a state\u2019s failure to provide access to voter registration information. They are misinterpreting the law and Supreme Court precedent.<\/p>\n<h2>Standards for Standing<\/h2>\n<p>One of the basic standing requirements is that a plaintiff, whether a person or organization, wishing to file a lawsuit must demonstrate that he, she, or it has suffered an actual, concrete injury. This NVRA public disclosure requirement is what the Supreme Court in multiple cases has labeled a \u201csunshine\u201d provision that is intended to ensure transparency. As the Ninth Circuit pointed out recently in <a href=\"https:\/\/caselaw.findlaw.com\/court\/us-9th-circuit\/118318703.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>Public Interest Legal Foundation v. Nago<\/em><\/a>, the Supreme Court has established that plaintiffs suffer an injury-in-fact sufficient to establish Article III standing when they fail \u201cto obtain information which must be publicly disclosed pursuant to a statute.\u201d No other showing of an injury is required, and the First Circuit has agreed.<\/p>\n<p>Yet other courts of appeals, including the Third, Fifth, and Sixth Circuits, have held that, as the Fifth Circuit mistakenly said in <a href=\"https:\/\/case-law.vlex.com\/vid\/campaign-legal-ctr-v-917011491\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><em>Campaign Legal Center v. Scott<\/em><\/a>, plaintiffs must show that they have suffered a \u201cconcrete and particularized harm \u2026 from not obtaining the requested personal voter information.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But that is simply not true. If a federal law provides the public with access to certain public information, the failure of a government agency to provide that public information causes a concrete injury sufficient for standing. This is an \u201cinformational injury\u201d and no additional adverse effects have to be shown.<\/p>\n<h2>Limits on Information<\/h2>\n<p>The other problem is that some courts, even if they grant standing, are limiting the amount of information that has to be disclosed. States such as Maine and New Mexico are also restricting what can be done with the information that is disclosed, limiting its use and publication on the internet or elsewhere with the threat of civil or criminal penalties for violations.<\/p>\n<p>That also violates the NVRA. It seems obvious \u2014 except to certain federal judges \u2014 that having access to <em>all<\/em> information relevant to determining whether a state is complying with the federal requirement to maintain an accurate, up-to-date voter registration list must include access not only to the maintenance <em>procedures<\/em> used by states, but to the <em>actual <\/em>voter registration and voter history <em>documentation<\/em> of every single voter on the list itself.<\/p>\n<p>Why is this important? The <a href=\"https:\/\/case-law.vlex.com\/vid\/foundation-v-sec-comm-1087277711\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Third Circuit case<\/a> was about Pennsylvania refusing to release the number of aliens who registered and voted for years without detection through an admitted \u201cglitch\u201d in the state\u2019s DMV driver\u2019s licensing system. The <a href=\"https:\/\/case-law.vlex.com\/vid\/campaign-legal-ctr-v-917011491\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Fifth Circuit case<\/a> was about Texas refusing to disclose the number of registered voters the state suspected of being aliens who are ineligible to vote. And the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.leagle.com\/decision\/infco20250506123\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Sixth Circuit case<\/a> was about Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson\u2019s refusal to <a href=\"https:\/\/publicinterestlegal.org\/press\/pilf-takes-michigan-to-the-supreme-court-for-failing-to-remove-deceased-voters\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">remove<\/a> 34,000 deceased voters from the registration rolls.<\/p>\n<p>It is vital that the Supreme Court resolve this circuit split. As Congress recognized, fair, honest, and secure elections are a fundamental requirement for maintaining our democratic republic. The Supreme Court has its own obligation to ensure that the law passed by Congress to uphold and support that requirement is properly applied by the federal judiciary.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Hans von Spakovsky is a senior legal fellow at Advancing American Freedom and chairman of the Public Interest Legal Foundation. His new report on this NVRA problem can be found <a href=\"https:\/\/advancingamericanfreedom.com\/the-national-voter-registration-act-mandates-publicaccess-to-voter-registration-records-and-preempts-allstate-laws-to-the-contrary\/\">here.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Courts hinder election integrity by misreading voter law<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3918,"featured_media":2618390,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/14331242428_506305c290_k-e1782151719714.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651],"tags":[32644,81640,50442,81446,32643],"class_list":["post-2618389","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","tag-election-integrity","tag-electoral-fraud","tag-judges-2","tag-legal-misconduct","tag-voter-rolls"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/14331242428_506305c290_k-e1782151719714.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2618389","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3918"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2618389"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2618389\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2618393,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2618389\/revisions\/2618393"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2618390"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2618389"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2618389"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2618389"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}