The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) filed a federal lawsuit against the City of Detroit on Dec. 11 for allegedly failing to maintain voter rolls, which featured more than 2,500 dead voters—including one aged 196.
PILF said in a news release that a comparison of qualified voter data and death certificates from the state of Michigan revealed that of the registered voters over 85 years old, more than 2,500 were dead Americans.
The law firm also found that about 4,788 registered voters in the city may have registered to vote two or three times. PILF flagged those files after finding “matching or substantially similar names and other biographical information within the same addresses” including “examples of married/maiden name conflicts, simple typographical errors, and conflicting gender designations were trending concerns.”
PILF, a firm dedicated election integrity according to its website, flagged another 16,400 registered voters who allegedly did not have dates that show when they registered to vote. Among those also flagged were those “impossibly old” or “disqualifying young,” including one voter who was listed as having been born in the year “1823.”
“The City of Detroit is failing to perform some of the most basic functions owed to its citizenry,” said PILF President and General Counsel J. Christian Adams. “The city government’s nonchalant attitude toward addressing evidence of dead and duplicate registrations exposes yet another vulnerability in our voting systems as our nation works to improve election security before November 2020. Making a federal case out of this was necessary, and I hope we can achieve a resolution before the polls open.”
“The Foundation seeks relief under Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which requires officials to make “reasonable efforts” to maintain voter lists and offers a private right to file a lawsuit if standards are not met,” the lawsuit said.
This led Michigan GOP chairwoman Laura Cox to the inference, that, “When thousands of dead people are registered to vote, and there are more people registered than are eligible to vote in the city of Detroit either someone is trying to commit fraud, or there is gross incompetence within the Detroit city clerk’s office.”