Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton | Twitter
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton | Twitter
A lawsuit regarding Colorado's voter rolls can proceed, a federal judge has ruled.
The legal action was brought in October 2020 by watchdog group Judicial Watch in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado on behalf of three residents of Colorado against the Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold and the State of Colorado. The group alleged the state failed to maintain its voter rolls as required by the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA).
Judicial Watch said in a news release that “the court ruled that the individual plaintiffs have standing to sue based on the fact that ‘noncompliance with the NVRA undermines the individual plaintiffs’ confidence in the integrity of the electoral process and discourages their participation [in elections].’
"...Chief District Judge Philip A. Brimmer also ruled that the Judicial Watch’s allegations about Colorado’s voting lists were enough to allow the lawsuit to proceed," the press release stated.
“[Judicial Watch’s] claims that the secretary is not complying with the NVRA are based on public records and statistical analysis,” Brimmer wrote. “Plaintiffs insist that they have shown not only high registration rates, which they claim courts have found indicative of an NVRA violation, but also that the secretary sends too few confirmation Notices, removes too few registrants, and has too high a number of inactive voters on the rolls. [T]he court finds that plaintiffs have met their burden and have plausibly alleged that Colorado’s list maintenance program does not comply with the NVRA.”
Judicial Watch alleges in its lawsuit that 40 of Colorado’s 64 counties had voter registration rates exceeding 100% of the eligible citizen voting-age population, according to a 2019 study. It also alleges that more than 1 in 6 registrations belonged to an inactive voter in eight counties in the state and that the last two years, 60 of 64 counties had a higher percentage of inactive registrations than the national median.
Judicial Watch stated in its suit that there is an "ongoing, systemic problem with Colorado's voter list maintenance efforts."
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