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On behalf of the League of Women Voters, OnePA, and the A. Philip Randolph Institute, Demos moved to intervene in a lawsuit filed by the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) against three county officials responsible for overseeing elections in Allegheny County, seeking a court order requiring the county purge thousands of voters from the voter roll.

 

Case Background

The Public Interest Legal Foundation is a right-wing activist group that is seeking to aggressively purge voters by bullying county election officials with lawsuits claiming violations of the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA). PILF previously used this strategy to demand purges in Broward County, Florida; Wake County, North Carolina; and Alexandria, Virginia, and in each of those cases, Demos intervened successfully and helped stop the inappropriate and unnecessary purges PILF was demanding. 

In these and other cases, PILF’s claims of invalid voter registrations have repeatedly proven inaccurate and overblown. Nevertheless, in Allegheny County, PILF has used the same flawed methodology the court rejected in Broward County to claim there are too many people registered to vote.

Under Section 8 of the NVRA, states are responsible for ensuring that eligible individuals who register to vote are included on the voter rolls. Once a voter is registered, the NVRA requires states to update the individual’s registration when they move and prohibits states from removing the voter so long as they remain eligible to vote. Responsible maintenance requires that voters remain registered unless the state obtains evidence showing that the person is no longer eligible. 

The motion to intervene was filed on March 2, 2020. Litigation is ongoing.

Clients

The Pittsburgh chapter of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, OnePA, the League of Women Voters of Pennsylvania, League of Women Voters of Greater Pittsburgh

Co-counsel

ACLU of Pennsylvania, ACLU