South Carolina Must Give Right-Wing Group Access to Voter Rolls, Federal Judge Says
The South Carolina State Election Commission must give a right-wing group access to their voter registration list, a federal judge ruled on Wednesday.
The Public Legal Interest Foundation (PILF) first requested access to a copy of the state’s voter rolls in February, but the state’s election commission rejected their request because, under a state election law, only qualified voters in South Carolina can gain access to that information.
Then, in March, PILF sued South Carolina Elections Commission director Howard Knapp, arguing the state’s law violates the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), which requires states to maintain publicly accessible voter registration records.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Court Judge Joseph Anderson ruled in favor of PILF, stating that “South Carolina’s prohibition on the distribution of the [Statewide Voter Registration List] to only eligible South Carolina voters conflicts with the NVRA’s mandate that all records concerning maintenance and accuracy activities be made available for ‘public inspection.’”
Now, PILF can receive access to South Carolina’s statewide voter registration list. Over the past year, the group has sued to gain access to voter registration records in numerous states like Minnesota and Wisconsin ahead of the 2024 election.
“We have compiled the voter rolls from across the country into a database that allows us to know who is voting twice or from beyond the grave,” PILF said on its website. “We’ve used this data to sue states for failing to do effective list maintenance such as not removing deceased registrants, duplicate voter registrations, and voters who move to another state.”
Many of PILF’s public claims about mass voter fraud can’t be proven, but they still succeed in sowing doubt in the election process and the credibility of results. The right-wing legal group is led by allies of former President Donald Trump, who continues to spread lies about voter fraud as the 2024 election approaches.