Right-wing legal group files lawsuits against voter rolls in three states

Citizen_AG, an emerging right-wing legal group, filed three lawsuits in three battleground states this week targeting voter rolls. Two of the lawsuits — in Arizona and Pennsylvania — target the state's maintenance of voter rolls, while a lawsuit filed in Wisconsin challenges the state's use of the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) to improve the accuracy of its voter rolls and identify eligible voters registered voter questions.

Before this week, Citizen_AG had not filed any election-related lawsuits.

The Wisconsin lawsuit filed Monday alleges that ERIC and the Center for Election Innovation and Research (CEIR) used data from the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (WisDOT) to obtain driving records of millions of Wisconsin residents to target eligible, unregistered voters identify voters. Wisconsin has been a member of ERIC since 2016. This practice, the lawsuit says, violates the state's Driver's Privacy and Protection Act (DPPA).

Citizen_AG's lawsuit filed Tuesday in Pennsylvania alleges that the state's voter rolls list more than 277,000 registrants who may not be eligible to vote. The National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) requires states to maintain accurate voter registration lists by contacting voters who may no longer be eligible to vote based on their residency. If a voter does not respond to a state's certification notice, they will be marked as “inactive” for two federal election cycles before being removed from the state's voter rolls.

Citizen_AG alleges that the state violated Section 8 of the NVRA by failing to remove registrants who never responded to verification notices sent in the 2020 election. The lawsuit also alleges that Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt (R) failed to provide voter rolls to Citizen_AG within 30 days of their request, violating the NVRA's disclosure provisions. In its lawsuit, the group asked the court to prohibit Pennsylvania from allowing inactive registrants to vote in the November general election and to require the state to immediately provide voter rolls.

The group filed a similar lawsuit in Arizona on Wednesday, alleging there are 1.2 million potentially inactive voters who never responded to verification notices and are listed as active on the state's voter rolls. They also claim that Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes (D) never responded to the group's request for voter lists. Her lawsuit also asks the court to order Fontes to provide voter rolls and ensure that ineligible voters cannot vote in the November general election.

Citizen_AG is the self-described “registered fictitious name for 1789 Foundation Inc.,” a right-wing nonprofit legal group founded by attorney Mike Yoder. Yoder describes himself as a “constitutional lawyer” who is “known for his aggressive litigation style, particularly against the Biden administration.” Yoder, through his law firm Yoder Dreher Pearson LLP, claims to have filed more than 100 federal lawsuits related to vaccination mandates, targeting White House officials and “every secretary in the Biden administration Cabinet,” as well as state Democratic officials such as Mayors Eric Adams and Muriel Bowser and the Governors Gavin Newsom, JB Pritzker and Kathy Hochul.

Yoder said he founded Citizen_AG in 2022 with the goal of “empowering citizens and protecting their freedoms from unlawful mandates and government overreach.”

Learn more about the Arizona lawsuit here.

Learn more about the Pennsylvania lawsuit here.

Learn more about the Wisconsin lawsuit here.

This article was updated on October 31 to reflect that Wisconsin is still a member of ERIC.