A federal judge ordered the state of Kentucky to clean up its voter registration list in order to abide by the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) Monday.
U.S. District Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove, in conjunction with Judicial Watch and the Department of Justice (DOJ), signed a consent decree that prompted Kentucky to remove names of people who were ineligible to vote due to residency or death.
The consent decree required Kentucky to increase transparency by creating an implementable comprehensive plan. The plan must include several measures like Kentucky providing “Sources of information used regularly,” “List of registrants to whom notices have been sent,” and “A detailed description of any role that local election officials may play in list maintenance activities,” according to Judicial Watch.
Judicial Watch sued the state in November 2017 as 48 counties in Kentucky had more registered voters than citizens over 18 years old, according to a Monday Judicial Watch press release. Judicial Watch added that Kentucky refused to comply with federal law by not releasing registration-related records.
The DOJ became involved in the lawsuit in June. (RELATED: Here’s What Voter Fraud Looks Like In 23 States)
“Dirty voter rolls can mean dirty elections so Judicial Watch is pleased our lawsuit succeeded in requiring Kentucky to take commonsense steps to clean its rolls,” Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton said in the press release. “It is good to see that the Justice Department, after years of inaction, has finally returned to enforcing the law requiring states to take reasonable steps to maintain the accuracy of voting rolls.”
The Kentucky lawsuit was one of several lawsuits by Judicial Watch in order to uphold state ID voter laws. There are ongoing lawsuits against Montgomery County, Maryland, for refusing to release documents in compliance with NVRA and Los Angeles County, California, for not cleaning up their voter rolls.
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