Politics

11 California Counties Might Have More Registered Voters Than Eligible

Judicial Watch says some of California's voter rolls are a mess, and it's threatening to sue the state if it doesn't fix them.

11 California Counties Might Have More Registered Voters Than Eligible
Getty Images
SMS

A conservative watchdog group says the current state of California's voter rolls threatens to undermine the integrity of its 2018 federal elections.

Judicial Watch found 11 California counties had more registered voters than citizens of voting age.

The group says the number of registered voters was between 102 percent and 144 percent higher than the actual number of people of voting age, depending on the county.

It broke down its findings by county like this: "Imperial (102 percent), Lassen (102 percent), Los Angeles (112 percent), Monterey (104 percent), San Diego (138 percent), San Francisco (114 percent), San Mateo (111 percent), Santa Cruz (109 percent), Solano (111 percent), Stanislaus (102 percent), and Yolo (110 percent)."

Federal Judge Won't Stop Trump's Voter Fraud Commission
Federal Judge Won't Stop Trump's Voter Fraud Commission

Federal Judge Won't Stop Trump's Voter Fraud Commission

The judge said the commission wasn't a federal agency and, therefore, wasn't held to the same privacy standards.

LEARN MORE

The group's findings come from official voter registration records, but it says some numbers differ now. When it contacted Los Angeles County in June, its total number of registered voters stood at 144 percent the total number of voting-age residents.

But those numbers likely don't indicate anything nefarious like widespread voter fraud. It's actually pretty common for voter rolls to be a mess. In fact, Judicial Watch threatened to sue 11 other states in April for the same reason.

2012 Pew Research study found around 2.75 million people were registered to vote in multiple states and more than 1.8 million deceased people were still registered to vote.

Oftentimes, people don't realize they need to notify local voting officials when they move or when a loved one dies.

But outside of a few isolated incidences, those extra numbers don't generally lead to voter fraud.

But Judicial Watch says California is in violation of the National Voter Registration Act. The group said it may sue the state if it doesn't clean up its voter rolls.