Allegheny County Board of Elections facing lawsuit over voter rolls

An Indiana-based law firm is suing Allegheny County in federal court for allegedly failing to maintain its voter rolls.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation — which is led by J. Christian Adams, a former member of President Donald Trump’s now defunct commission to investigate voter fraud — filed the lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania on Monday, alleging that Allegheny County violated the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which requires officials to make “reasonable efforts” to maintain voter lists.

The lawsuit alleges that Allegheny County has registered the same individuals twice or more, citing some examples of voters who are registered as many as seven times over.

The lawsuit also alleges that voter rolls have not been maintained to remove dead voters or incomplete registrations, such as those missing dates of birth or registration, or that include incorrect addresses.

“List maintenance in Allegheny County has broken down,” Adams, who serves as president and general counsel for the Public Interest Legal Foundation, said in a statement. “We found people registered multiple times, registrants who were dead for decades, and problems throughout the rolls. Elections cannot have the same people registered two, three, or even seven times at once. We hope bringing this action will result in a quick solution before elections in November.”

The lawsuit names as defendants Elections Divisions Manager David Voye, along with County Executive Rich Fitzgerald and Allegheny County Council members at-large Bethany Hallam, D-Ross, and Sam DeMarco III, R-North Fayette, who all serve as members of the Allegheny County Board of Elections.

While it is the policy of the county not to comment on litigation matters, Voye said in a statement that he would address the lawsuit publicly because it concerns the conduct of elections.

“The first and foremost concern of Allegheny County is to protect the voting rights of all citizens,” Voye said. “Each citizen registered to vote gets one vote should they choose to exercise that right. There are no allegations that anything to the contrary has occurred. The allegations in this lawsuit will be reviewed and addressed as necessary consistent with all applicable federal and state laws. As is always the case with voter registration list maintenance, the utmost care will be taken to ensure that no one is disenfranchised.”

There are currently about 900,000 registered voters in Allegheny County.

Pennsylvania primary elections will take place April 28.

Allegheny County was threatened with a similar lawsuit by the conservative group Judicial Watch in December.

In a letter sent to Allegheny County Council, the county Board of Elections and the Pennsylvania Department of State, the group threatened to sue if the county did not make efforts to clean up voter rolls, citing “an implausibly high registration rate” and reports that the county has removed too few voter registrations in recent years.

Bucks, Chester and Delaware Counties received similar letters.