A major election integrity lawsuit is putting California’s voter registration system under fresh scrutiny just as voters cast ballots in some of the state’s most important primary contests.
Orange County Supervisor Don Wagner, the Republican candidate for secretary of state, has joined forces with the American Independent Party of California in a federal lawsuit against California Secretary of State Shirley Weber. The lawsuit alleges that hundreds of thousands of inactive voter registrations remain on California’s voter rolls long after federal law requires them to be removed.
Filed with assistance from conservative election watchdog Judicial Watch, the complaint claims California has failed to properly maintain its voter registration lists, leaving more than 873,000 inactive registrations on the books despite years of voter inactivity.
According to the lawsuit, 873,092 inactive registrations have remained on California’s voter rolls for at least three elections. Even more concerning to the plaintiffs, 151,202 registrations allegedly remained active after at least four consecutive federal election cycles without voter participation.
The lawsuit argues that California is violating federal election law by failing to remove those registrations after the required waiting periods have passed.
More than 23 million Californians are currently registered to vote, making the state home to the largest voter registration system in the nation. Maintaining accurate voter rolls has long been a point of contention between election integrity advocates and state officials.
Judicial Watch points to its previous legal battle with California as evidence that voter roll problems are not new. In 2019, the organization reached a settlement with California and Los Angeles County that ultimately resulted in the removal of more than 1.2 million voter registrations from the rolls.
Despite those efforts, Judicial Watch claims many counties have made little progress since then. According to the organization, 20 California counties have removed 50 or fewer inactive voters, even as census data has shown significant population shifts and migration out of the state.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton did not mince words when discussing the lawsuit.
“Judicial Watch’s federal lawsuit confirms California has a dirty voting rolls crisis, with thousands of old names on the rolls going back at least 10 years,” Fitton said.
“Dirty voting rolls can mean dirty elections. And California and its counties must take immediate steps to clean the over 870,000 dirty names on the voting lists.”
The lawsuit seeks court intervention to force California to implement a new voter-roll maintenance program and prevent what plaintiffs describe as ongoing violations of federal law.
The timing of the case is drawing additional attention because it arrives amid renewed debate over election security in California. Democrats have consistently defended the state’s election system as secure and reliable, while critics have argued that vulnerabilities remain and deserve greater oversight.
The legal challenge also comes on the heels of several troubling election-related incidents reported shortly before the primary election. Officials recently reported vandalism at a voting site and the discovery of burned mail-in ballots inside a ballot drop box. In a separate incident, a Bay Area voter reportedly found a ballot center unlocked and unattended after hours.
While those incidents are unrelated to the voter-roll lawsuit, they have added fuel to an already heated debate about election administration and public confidence.
For Wagner and the other plaintiffs, the case is ultimately about ensuring voter rolls accurately reflect eligible voters and comply with federal law. For Weber and California election officials, it represents yet another challenge to a system they have repeatedly defended against criticism.
With more than 873,000 inactive registrations now at the center of a federal court battle, California’s voter rolls are once again becoming a focal point in the ongoing national conversation about election integrity, transparency, and voter confidence.
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