This article is made possible through Spotlight PA’s collaboration with Votebeat , a nonpartisan news organization covering local election administration and voting. Sign up for Votebeat Pennsylvania’s free newsletters here . A far-right group is asking a judge to order Pennsylvania to clean up its voter roll, citing flaws it claims to have found in voter registration data as evidence that the state is violating federal law.
The group’s claims, however, appear to contradict facts about how the state’s voting systems work, reflecting what one election expert suggested is a “gross misunderstanding of election law.” Much of the information in the suit comes from groups with histories of making false claims about the state’s voter rolls, and the suit includes at least one easily disproved claim. The lawsuit is part of a broader strategy that the lead plaintiff, United Sovereign Americans, has acknowledged : to challenge voter rolls across the country, in separate federal court jurisdictions, to force the issue up to the U.
S. Supreme Court in time to affect the 2024 general election. The group filed a similar suit in Maryland that was dismissed in May because the plaintiffs didn’t have legal grounds to sue.
It is unclear if the Pennsylvania suit will face the same fate, but the group has gotten a high-profile local attorney, Bruce Castor, to file the case on its behalf. Castor served as acting attorney general of Pennsylvania in 2016 and represented former Presiden.
