Judicial Watch Lawsuit Settlement Causes Review and Removal of 800,000 Ineligible Voters from Oregon Voter Rolls

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced a settlement in its federal lawsuit against Oregon election officials, which confirms 800,000 ineligible voter names are slated for review and removal from voter registration lists. The settlement requires state officials to produce detailed data and enforce federal voter roll clean-up procedures under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA).

Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit in October 2024, alleging Oregon failed to remove ineligible voters and seeking to enforce Section 8 of the NVRA after identifying widespread voter roll maintenance failures across dozens of counties (Judicial Watch, et al. v. The State of Oregon et al. (No. 6:24-cv-01783)).

In its complaint, Judicial Watch argued that Oregon’s voter rolls contain large numbers of old, inactive registrations; and that 29 of Oregon’s 36 counties removed few or no registrations as required by federal election law. Judicial Watch asserted that Oregon and 35 of its counties had overall registration rates exceeding 100%; and that Oregon had the highest known inactive registration rate of any state in the nation. In combination, all of these facts showed that Oregon was failing to remove inactive registrations as required by federal law.

In August 2025, a federal court in Oregon denied a motion to dismiss by Oregon and ruled the lawsuit could proceed.

In response to the lawsuit, Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read announced earlier this year that Oregon has about 800,000 inactive registrations, which are kept separately from the active voter rolls and do not receive ballots. Of those, roughly 160,000 already meet federal and state criteria for removal—having received confirmation notices, failed to respond, and not voted in two federal elections—and are slated for cancellation. The remaining approximately 640,000 inactive records do not yet qualify for removal and will be processed through future list maintenance efforts.

In its press release, Oregon acknowledged that routine removal of outdated records effectively stalled in 2017, leaving a large pool of long-dormant registrations on the rolls without being fully processed for removal. The scale of the backlog underscores a gap in routine list maintenance that is only now being addressed. “These directives are about cleaning up old data that’s no longer in use so Oregonians can be confident that our voter records are up to date,” said Read.

“This is another historic election integrity success. Judicial Watch’s lawsuit caused Oregon to finally cleanup 800,000 outdated voter names, adding to the more than six million ineligible voters removed by Judicial Watch lawsuits and legal action nationwide,” said Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch. “Dirty voter rolls can mean dirty elections. Oregon’s Secretary of State, Tobias Read, is to be commended for responding to our lawsuit with a massive voter roll clean-up and commitment to continued voter list maintenance, which will only increase voter confidence.”

Judicial Watch’s lawsuits and legal actions have caused the removal of six million ineligible names from voter lists nationwide.

Under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), states must take reasonable steps to remove ineligible voters—such as those who have died, moved, or become otherwise inactive.

The settlement with Oregon remains in effect for more than five years, with a federal court retaining jurisdiction to enforce its terms. While the settlement resolves the litigation, it explicitly allows future legal action if Oregon fails to comply with voter list clean-up requirements going forward.

The settlement requires Oregon to open its voter roll maintenance processes to unprecedented scrutiny. State officials must now regularly provide detailed, county-level data on voter registrations, removals, confirmation notices, and inactive voters—including those eligible for removal under federal law. This includes data reported to the Election Assistance Commission, as well as additional datasets that will allow ongoing monitoring of compliance. The agreement ensures that this information will not be hidden behind bureaucratic barriers, requiring timely disclosure and identification of data sources.

Oregon will also provide annual reports on inactive voters and those eligible for removal under federal law, as well as provide free access to the state’s voter registration list upon request to Judicial Watch.

Oregon committed to implementing Read’s new list maintenance directives, which were issued in response to Judicial Watch’s lawsuit.

The agreement also gives Judicial Watch the authority to request detailed records and monitor Oregon’s compliance, including documentation related to county performance and voter list maintenance procedures.

Judicial Watch is a national leader in election integrity and voting rights litigation, with a record of successful lawsuits enforcing constitutional redistricting standards and cleaning voter rolls nationwide.

Robert Popper, a Judicial Watch senior attorney, leads its election law program. Popper was previously in the Voting Section of the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department, where he managed voting rights investigations, litigations, consent decrees, and settlements in dozens of states.

Judicial Watch is being assisted by Stephen Joncus of Joncus Law PC in Happy Valley, Oregon.

Colorado recently removed 372,000 ineligible voter names thanks to a Judicial Watch lawsuit and settlement addressing the state’s compliance with federal voter list maintenance requirements.

In Kentucky, state election board officials reported that “roughly 735,000 ineligible voter registrations” have been removed from voter rolls, as part of a 2018 consent decree settling a Judicial Watch lawsuit.

As part of its 2022 settlement, New York City alone has removed 918,139 ineligible names from its rolls: data show 477,056 removals between March 2023 and February 2025, which is in addition to the 441,083 previously reported removals.

In Los Angeles, county officials confirmed the removal of more than 1.2 million names from voter rolls as part of a settlement. Judicial Watch legal pressure also resulted in election roll clean-ups in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Ohio.

A federal court in Illinois has ruled that Judicial Watch’s lawsuit to force the cleaning of voter rolls may proceed in that state. Judicial Watch has sent a notice-of-violation letter to election officials in California, and legal action over the state’s voter rolls is imminent.

In March 2026, the Supreme Court of the United States held oral argument in a landmark election integrity case over whether the federal Election Day laws prohibit the counting of mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day. Judicial Watch brought the underlying lawsuit on behalf of the Libertarian Party of Mississippi.

In January 2026, in a historic case filed by Judicial Watch, the Supreme Court decided 7-2 in favor of Congressman Mike Bost and two presidential electors who were before the court to vindicate their standing to challenge an Illinois law allowing the counting of ballots received up to 14 days after Election Day.

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Source: https://www.judicialwatch.org/oregon-voter-rolls/