Federal Court Greenlights Judicial Watch Lawsuit Seeking Oregon Voter Roll Cleanup

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today that a federal court in Oregon ruled that its lawsuit filed on behalf of Judicial Watch, the Constitution Party of Oregon, and two registered voters to force the cleanup of Oregon’s voter rolls may proceed.

The Judicial Watch lawsuit alleges that Oregon violated the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), which requires states to “conduct a general program that makes a reasonable effort to remove” from the official voter rolls “the names of ineligible voters” who have died or changed residence.

In June, the U.S. Department of Justice had filed a statement of interest in this lawsuit.

In a June 6 Justice Department press release Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Harmeet Dhillon said: “Accurate voter registration rolls are critical to ensure that elections in Oregon are conducted fairly, accurately, and without fraud…. States have specific obligations under the list maintenance provisions of the NVRA, and the Department of Justice will vigorously enforce those requirements.”

 Judicial Watch initially filed the lawsuit in October 2024 to enforce basic voter list maintenance provisions under Section 8 of the NVRA after uncovering a broad failure to clean up voter rolls in dozens of Oregon counties (Judicial Watch, et al. v. The State of Oregon et al. (No. 6:24-cv-01783)).

In 2018, the Supreme Court confirmed that such removals are mandatory.

In its complaint, Judicial Watch argues that Oregon’s voter rolls contain large numbers of old, inactive registrations; and that 29 of Oregon’s 36 counties removed few or no registrations as required by federal election law. Judicial Watch asserts that Oregon and 35 of its counties had overall registration rates exceeding 100%; and that Oregon has the highest known inactive registration rate of any state in the nation.

Recently, federal courts in California and Illinois separately ruled that Judicial Watch lawsuits may proceed against those states to force them to clean up their voter rolls.

Judicial Watch announced in May that its work led to the removal of more than five million ineligible names from voter rolls nationwide.

 “We applaud the court’s decision to allow our case to continue its effort to clean up voter rolls in Oregon. Judicial Watch now has three federal lawsuits against three states to clean up potentially millions of names from the voter rolls,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.

Judicial Watch is a national leader in voting integrity and voting rights. As part of its work, Judicial Watch assembled a team of highly experienced voting rights attorneys who stopped discriminatory elections in Hawaii, and cleaned up voter rolls across the country, among other achievements.

Robert Popper, a Judicial Watch senior attorney, leads its election law program. Popper was previously in the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, where he managed voting rights investigations, litigations, consent decrees, and settlements in dozens of states.

Recently, the Commonwealth of Kentucky reported that 735,000 ineligible voter registrations had been removed from its voter rolls since 2019 by the State Board of Elections as part of its 2018 consent decree settling a lawsuit by Judicial Watch. 

As part of its 2022 settlement, New York City alone has removed 918,139 ineligible names from its rolls. Recent data show 477,056 removals between March 2023 and February 2025, which is in addition to the 441,083 previously reported removals. 

In July, Judicial Watch filed its opening brief to the Supreme Court of the United States in a case filed on behalf of Congressman Mike Bost and two presidential electors, who are before the court to vindicate their standing to challenge an Illinois law extending Election Day for 14 days beyond the date established by federal law (Rep. Michael J. Bost, Laura Pollastrini, and Susan Sweeney v. The Illinois State Board of Elections and Bernadette Matthews (No. 1:22-cv-02754, 23-2644, 24-568)).

Judicial Watch is being assisted by Stephen Joncus of Joncus Law PC in Happy Valley, Oregon.

###