Judicial Watch v. Griswold

Under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), states must make reasonable efforts to remove names from the voter registration list if 1) a voter dies, 2) a voter notifies the state government in writing that they have moved out of state, or 3) a voter fails to respond to an address confirmation notice by mail and doesn't vote in two general elections in a row (which can take up to 4 years). This is taken as proof that they have moved out of state and, thus, should not be registered to vote within the state anymore. While a voter has failed to respond to an address confirmation notice but not yet run out the clock, they are described as an inactive voter and are still registered to vote.

The organization Judicial Watch has, in their own words, "become increasingly concerned about the state of the nation’s voter registration rolls, including whether state and local officials are complying with the NVRA’s voter list maintenance obligations" for fear that it "undermines the integrity of elections by increasing the opportunity for ineligible voters or voters intent on fraud to cast ballots.". Judicial Watch filed this lawsuit against the State of Colorado and against Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold (SOS Griswold) claiming "Forty of Colorado’s 64 counties—or 62% of the total number—had registration rates exceeding 100%." Judicial Watch asked the court to order the strict enforcement of NVRA based on this and similar statistical analyses.

After the sides debated for some time, Judge Philip Brimmer cited legal precedent when he ruled that when suing a government official for violating federal law, "The state is not the real party in interest because the state cannot authorize the officials to violate federal law." Therefore, the charges against the State of Colorado were dismissed, but the ones against SOS Griswold remained up for debate.

Judge Brimmer next addressed whether any violations of NVRA had the potential to actually harm the plaintiffs, allowing them the standing necessary to file a lawsuit. He found that the claims of purportedly bloated voter rolls could only hypothetically lead to voter fraud which and would still not harm the individual plaintiffs personally, but that they still had standing to file on the basis that genuinely had lost confidence in the election results. Plaintiffs were ruled to have standing, though, and their allegations plausible enough that the case was not entirely dismissed.

The two sides were not able to find a resolution to the case without a trial, so they are scheduled to have a final pre-trial meeting on Jan 4th, 2024, and then go to trial.