Department of Justice Must Enforce Voter Roll Maintenance: Los Angeles County Tells the Tale — In the November 2024 election for Los Angeles County District Attorney, Nathan Hochman, former California GOP candidate, defeated woke, liberal incumbent George Gascon. Though nominally non-partisan, in reality “deep blue” Los Angeles elected a Republican prosecutor. Here’s how that happened:
The 2024 LA County Prosecutor votes were as follows: Hochman 1,421,207; Gascon: 891,264; Total votes: 2,312,471.
In 2020, Gascon defeated two term incumbent, Jackie Lacey with 2,002,865 votes to Lacey’s 1,738,617. Total votes cast in the 2020 election: 3,741,482.
There were 1,429,011 fewer votes in 2024 than in 2020. Gascon’s vote total decreased by 1,111,601.
Gascon’s woke policies contributed to his defeat. However, Gascon’s vote loss from 2020 to 2024 mirrors a Judicial Watch lawsuit against LA County to enforce provisions of the 1993 National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).
Judicial Watch sued Los Angeles County in 2017 for failure to follow NVRA required voter roll maintenance. Because of that case Los Angeles County was ordered to remove 1,207,613 ineligible voters from its rolls as of February 2023.
LA County removed 1.2 million ineligible voters. Progressive prosecutor received 1.1 million fewer votes.
The NVRA, passed in 1993, known as ‘motor voter”, requires state driver license facilities, military recruitment centers and state benefit offices to register voters. County clerks had traditionally managed registrations.
In return for expanded registration opportunities, Congress required state election authorities to maintain clean voter rolls. These requirements include immediate removal of certain registrations: deaths, incapacity judgments, written voter requests and where applicable, felony convictions. A detailed process removing non-voters who do not respond to inquiries and still fail to vote is required.
NVRA provisions allow private enforcement of the law. Around the country, private lawsuits by Judicial Watch, political parties and others have resulted in the removal of more than four million ineligible voters from registration rolls. United Sovereign Americans, is pursuing court actions against nine states. (I filed an NVRA action for the Illinois Conservative Union in 2020.)
The NVRA has many prerequisites for private enforcement. Private NVRA court action is cumbersome, time consuming and expensive.
Unlike a private party, the US Attorney General has authority to enforce all aspects of the NVRA without jumping through legal hoops. In some cases the USAG can pursue criminal charges. The Justice Department website, lists 34 NVRA lawsuits or settlements since 1993, but only four involved state failure to maintain voter rolls.
The United States Supreme Court has acknowledged the voter roll problem: “It has been estimated that 24 million voter registrations in the United States—about one in eight—are either invalid or significantly inaccurate…. And about 2.75 million people are said to be registered to vote in more than one State.” HUSTED v. A. PHILIP RANDOLPH INSTITUTE 138 S. Ct. 1833, 201 L. Ed. 2d 141 (2018).
Justice Alito’s Husted opinion cited 24 million registrations problems. United Sovereign Americans has completed detailed analysis of 21 states from the 2022 election. That analysis discovered 29 million apparently ineligible registrations and of those, 10 million cast votes.
During the 2020 presidential election RNLA sent me to Allegheny County, PA. At the Allegheny mail in ballot processing facility I organized 70 observers corralled into a small space unable to conduct meaningful observation. We did observe ballot envelopes had been opened before arrival in the public processing area. Additionally, I and three other lawyers, based upon whistleblower information, found condemned buildings that had registered voters sending in mail in ballots.
In 2024 I worked with Bob Fioretti, Republican candidate for Cook County State’s Attorney. During early voting I spent three days at the county processing facility. Hundreds of thousands of ballots were processed without effective oversight. Those days I was the only outside person observing (besides hypothetical “Republican” election judges).
Centralized mail in ballot processing controlled by a few people provides the unscrupulous opportunity to take advantage of inaccurate voter rolls, defeating the consent of the governed. Thus candidates are selected, not elected.
Jerry Stocks, an Illinois attorney experienced in election law, including five RNLA deployments, concurs that failure to maintain voter roll integrity is a scandal. Stocks contends U.S. Attorneys must enforce the NVRA as part of restoring confidence in our elections.
Since January 20 President Trump and his team have amazed: Panama, Greenland, USAID, DOGE, Rubio, Hegseth, Bondi, Patel, RFK Jr., Musk, female sports, DEI, Gaza, J6 pardons, Canada, Mexico, ICE, Fort Knox, IRS, paper straws, dishwashers and more. To secure the benefits of President Trump’s victory and the work of he and his team, the security of elections going forward is critical.
Los Angeles County demonstrates clean voter rolls make a difference in electoral outcomes. Private citizens have limited resources and states have taxpayer funded lawyers. (The Los Angeles County result required over five years of litigation.)
United Sovereign America data shows it’s a national issue and only the Justice Department can address it on a national scale.
In many states, the election process for 2026 begins soon, and voter registrations impact that process from the beginning. Illinois candidate petitions for 2026 begin circulation in September, 2025. As in most states, registered voters are to sign such petitions. Clean voter rolls impact who gets on the ballot.
There are many proposals to improve election integrity: single day voting, only paper ballots, hand counts, etc. All require changes in current law. The requirement to clean our voter rolls IS THE LAW NOW. It should be enforced.
Department of Justice Must Enforce Voter Roll Maintenance: Los Angeles County Tells the Tale
