Case Summary
Three Wisconsin residents filed a lawsuit against the Wisconsin Elections Commission and Milwaukee Election Commission in state court. They requested the court compel elections officials to purge tens of thousands of voters in Milwaukee from the voter rolls. LWVWI filed an amicus brief opposing the requested relief to protect registered voters from improper purges.
Wisconsin law requires state and local election commissions to maintain accurate voter rolls. Under Wisconsin Statute § 5.061 et seq., the state is required to “remove the names of ineligible voters from the computerized list in accordance with State law.” The state splits responsibility for this task between the statewide commission, the Wisconsin Elections Commission, and local municipal authorities.
On September 30, 2024, the plaintiffs – three individual Wisconsin residents – filed their complaint in Wisconsin state court. The plaintiffs alleged the Wisconsin Elections Commission and City of Milwaukee Election Commission had failed to maintain accurate voter rolls in violation of state law. More specifically, plaintiffs claimed that the defendants did not investigate nearly 150,000 voters in the Milwaukee area with address discrepancies. This assertion was allegedly based on the plaintiffs’ attempt to match data from the city’s active voter file with data in the National Change of Address (NCOA) database. Courts have previously held that the NCOA database is inaccurate for the purpose of assessing voter eligibility due to issues like inaccuracies in the data and likelihood of false positives. For more information on why using NCOA data for voter purges is flawed, check out this article.
The complaint requested the court to order defendants to mail a notice to all 150,000 voters alleged to have address discrepancies, change their statuses to inactive if they did not reply within 30 days, and instruct local election officials across Wisconsin to do the same.
The requested relief threatens to purge tens of thousands of registered voters from the voter rolls within 6 weeks of the 2024 general election.
On October 3, 2024, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) moved to intervene as defendants in the suit.
On October 8, 2024, LWVWI filed an amicus brief in opposition to the plaintiffs’ requested relief. The brief urged the court to deny the plaintiffs’ requested declaratory, injunctive, and mandamus relief for failure to be supported by facts and substantive law. It also highlighted the harm and confusion voter-list maintenance programs based on database comparison cause, especially close to an election.
On October 16, 2024, three nonprofit organizations – Black Leaders Organizing for Communities, Souls to the Polls, and WISDOM – moved to intervene as defendants and also filed a motion to dismiss the suit.
On October 22, 2024, defendants filed a motion to dismiss the case. On October 28, 2024, the court dismissed the case. On November 5, 2024, plaintiffs filed an amended complaint for declaratory and injunctive relief.
On October 28, 2024, the court dimissed the case.
LWVWI was represented by Law Forward and the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.
LWV Timeline
Plaintiffs file lawsuit
Individual voters file a lawsuit against the Wisconsin Elections Commission and the Milwaukee Election Commission challenging a failure to maintain accurate voter rolls in violation of state law. The plaintiffs request the court order defendants to mail notices to voters with address irregularities and change their voter statuses if they do not respond promptly.
LWVWI files amicus brief
LWVWI files an amicus brief opposing plaintiffs’ request for relief because list-maintenance programs based on database comparisons are unreliable and confusing.
Court dismisses case
The state trial court dismisses the case.