In a major win for election integrity advocates, the Department of Justice has sided with Judicial Watch in a lawsuit against the Oregon Secretary of State over the state’s failure to follow federal law requiring transparency in how it maintains its voter rolls.
The DOJ filed a Statement of Interest on Friday, in the case Judicial Watch v. Read, confirming that Oregon cannot hide behind its counties or bureaucratic red tape to avoid its clear legal responsibilities under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).
The case centers on Oregon’s refusal to hand over public records detailing efforts to clean up its voter rolls — including lists of people sent confirmation notices and whether they responded — as mandated by Section 8 of the NVRA.
Judicial Watch and other plaintiffs allege that Oregon’s Secretary of State, Tobias Read, failed to make a reasonable effort to remove ineligible voters from the rolls and unlawfully withheld critical records from public inspection — a violation that could conceal voter fraud and election mismanagement.
In a stunning rebuke of Oregon’s handling, the DOJ’s legal filing emphasized that states, not counties, are directly responsible for maintaining and disclosing these records.
Oregon’s own response to Judicial Watch’s 2023 records request admitted that fulfilling it would take 5,000 hours due to lack of central coordination.
The DOJ made clear: this is no excuse.
“To the extent that the state does not have in place and must fashion ad hoc methods to access and retrieve the records from the counties and ensure the records are preserved for at least two years, the state’s laws and practices would not be consistent with the state’s obligations under the NVRA,” the DOJ wrote.
The DOJ warned that any state law attempting to delegate those responsibilities to local officials must yield to federal law under the Constitution’s Elections Clause.
According to the press release:
The Justice Department announced today that it has filed a Statement of Interest in Judicial Watch v. Reed, No. 6:24-cv-1783 (D. Ore.) regarding the requirements under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) for states to maintain and make available for public inspection records concerning list maintenance to ensure the accuracy of the official list of eligible voters.
The lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch alleges that the State of Oregon failed to comply with the state’s obligations under the NVRA to conduct a list maintenance program and to make the records concerning list maintenance publicly available. Advancing President Donald J. Trump’s Executive Order to preserve and protect the integrity of American elections, the Attorney General of the United States, through the Civil Rights Division, enforces NVRA mandates.
“Accurate voter registration rolls are critical to ensure that elections in Oregon are conducted fairly, accurately, and without fraud,” said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. “States have specific obligations under the list maintenance provisions of the NVRA, and the Department of Justice will vigorously enforce those requirements.”
Read statement of interest below:
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