Your Voter Rolls Are a Mess. Some States Won't Let Anyone Look.
(Chuck Muth) – One in eight voter registrations in America is significantly inaccurate. That's not a conspiracy theory. That's a Pew Research finding.
And some states are fighting hard to make sure you can't verify it for yourself.
A new legal report from the Edwin Meese III Institute for the Rule of Law, written by Heritage Foundation Senior Legal Fellow Hans von Spakovsky, lays out exactly what's going on.
It's a story about dirty voter rolls, federal law, and courts that can't agree on something that really shouldn't be this complicated.
The Problem Is Bigger Than You Think
Between 2013 and 2023, more than 35 million voter registrations were out of date because people had moved, died, or were registered more than once.
That's not just sloppy recordkeeping. It's a wide-open door for fraud.
A 2020 study compared voter registration lists and voter histories from 42 states. What it found was troubling.
There were over 144,000 cases of potentially fraudulent voting during the 2016 and 2018 elections. That included more than 14,000 deceased voters who were recorded as having cast ballots.
Over 81,000 people who voted twice at the same address. Nearly 8,400 who voted in two different states. And 34,000 who voted despite being registered at vacant lots, parks, or commercial buildings.
Is it any wonder that 43 percent of Americans told Gallup they're not confident in the accuracy and security of our elections?
The Law Already Has an Answer
Congress saw this coming.
The National Voter Registration Act of 1993, known as the NVRA, requires states to keep accurate voter rolls and make those records available for public inspection.
Not just for election officials. For anyone.
The law is pretty clear. States have to maintain records on their voter list maintenance programs and make them available for public inspection.
The goal is transparency. Let citizens and watchdog groups check the work.
Groups like the Public Interest Legal Foundation have been doing exactly that. They've asked states for voter roll records. And some states have said no.
Where Courts Are Making a Mess
Here's where it gets complicated.
Federal courts across the country can't agree on who has the right to demand these records in court.
The First and Tenth Circuits say yes, watchdog groups have standing to sue when states refuse to hand over voter data.
The Ninth Circuit says they have standing but then ruled they can't actually get the voter registration list itself.
And the Third, Fifth, and Sixth Circuits say these groups don't have standing at all.
That's a genuine legal mess. Your rights under federal law depend entirely on which state you're in.
In Michigan, election integrity group PILF tried to get records showing 34,000 deceased voters still on the rolls.
Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson refused. The Sixth Circuit sided with Benson.
In New Mexico, a group published voter data it legally obtained, and the secretary of state sent a criminal referral to the attorney general.
You read that right. A criminal referral for publishing public voter data.
What Needs to Happen
Von Spakovsky's conclusion is straightforward. The U.S. Supreme Court needs to step in and settle this.
The NVRA means what it says. The public has a right to inspect voter rolls. No extra hoops. No proving you “need” the information before you're allowed to have it.
Nevada isn't immune to these problems either.
Our state has had its own questions about voter roll accuracy and post-election counting processes. When federal law provides a transparency tool, Nevada's citizens should be able to use it.
Clean elections start with clean voter rolls. And clean voter rolls start with transparency. The Supreme Court should make sure we can get it.