July 21, 2026

In the fight for election integrity, Judicial Watch continues to notch voter-friendly victories across the country.

In California, Judicial Watch sued the state for failing to maintain accurate voter rolls—a requirement of the National Voter Registration Act. The law requires the removal of most inactive voter registrations after two general elections. The numbers are astonishing. The JW lawsuit charges that California failed to remove 873,000 inactive voters from their registration rolls who have been inactive for more than two general elections. Sometimes a lot more: tens of thousands of the registrations have been inactive for over ten years. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of the American Independent Party of California and Don Wagner, an elected member of the Orange County Board of Supervisors who is running for California Secretary of State.

Last week, the Justice Department filed notice that it intended to intervene in the lawsuit on behalf of Wagner and the Independent Party. Citing data from Judicial Watch’s original complaint, the Justice Department said in its Complaint in Intervention that California “does not comply with the NVRA’s requirement that the state conduct a general program of voter registration list maintenance that makes a reasonable effort to remove persons from the voter rolls who have become ineligible.”

JW President Tom Fitton welcomed the federal move. Dirty voter rolls can mean dirty elections. “The Justice Department is right following Judicial Watch’s lead and join our fight to clean up California’s dirty voting rolls,” Tom said.

This isn’t Judicial Watch’s first election-integrity rodeo in California. In 2019, Los Angeles County settled a JW lawsuit that resulted in the removal of more than 1.2 million names from voter rolls.

Read more on Judicial Watch

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