Settlement Secures Information-Sharing Agreement for Voter Roll List Maintenance Leads
(PITTSBURGH, PA.) — May 19, 2020: The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) reached a settlement with Allegheny County, Pennsylvania to create an information-sharing agreement that allows for voter registration roll list maintenance leads and feedback. (PILF v. Voye).
The parties agreed to dismiss the case after the settlement was reached on Monday, May 18.
“Allegheny County deserves credit for agreeing to fix a serious problem with elections there,” PILF President and General Counsel J. Christian Adams said. “People have been getting registered two, three, four, even seven times over to vote in Pittsburgh and the suburbs. We found those problems, and the County agreed to fix them. We also outlined plans to address registration files which may be outdated, incomplete, or belong to deceased persons. This settlement demonstrates what can be accomplished when good government groups work with election officials in good faith without the interference of ideologically driven activists who oppose such measures. Those same activists push radical changes to vote by mail, which shows how important this settlement was for a clean election in Pennsylvania.”
Prior to the initiation of the lawsuit, the Foundation provided the County with more than 12,450 specific voter list maintenance leads after reviewing the official roll for evidence of potentially duplicated, deceased, incomplete, or otherwise inaccurate entries.
Settlement Terms Summary
–County will provide records showing the results of comparisons between the Foundation’s leads involving potentially deceased registrants within 60 days of the agreement.
–County will provide records showing the results of proposed duplicated registration merges within 60 days of the agreement.
–County agrees, within 60 days, to send letters to registrants with fictitious or placeholder dates of birth on file.
–County agrees to review registration records where dates of birth exceed 110 years of age and determine if death notices were previously overlooked on an annual basis for the next three years.
–County agrees to accept future list maintenance leads from the Foundation over the next one-year period.
The Foundation originally filed the lawsuit in February 2020 after performing an audit of Allegheny County’s official voter registration roll. A similar lawsuit is pending against the City of Detroit, Michigan.
The case was filed in the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania, number 2:20-cv-00279.
Attorneys for the Public Interest Legal Foundation were Noel H. Johnson and Susan Becker. Philadelphia-based Linda A. Kerns served as local counsel.
Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) is a 501(c)(3) public interest law firm dedicated to election integrity. The Foundation exists to assist states and others to aid the cause of election integrity and fight against lawlessness in American elections. Drawing on numerous experts in the field, PILF seeks to protect the right to vote and preserve the Constitutional framework of American elections.
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