California signed a legal settlement promising to clean its voter rolls.
That was 2019 – and the state just got sued for what it did next.
What a federal court just discovered on California's voter rolls should end Secretary of State Shirley Weber's career.
How California Mail-In Voting Turned 873000 Ghost Registrations Into a Fraud Risk
The lawsuit, filed by Orange County Supervisor Don Wagner and the American Independent Party of California with Judicial Watch behind it, alleges Weber violated the National Voter Registration Act.
The NVRA is not complicated.
Federal law requires states to remove inactive voter registrations after two consecutive federal elections without participation.
California let two elections go by without touching them.
Then a third.
According to the court filing, 873,092 registrations sat untouched through at least three consecutive federal election cycles.
Over 151,000 of them survived four consecutive elections without a single vote cast.
33,922 registrations have been inactive since before the 2016 presidential election – a full decade on the rolls without a single vote.
The lawsuit isn't just about paperwork – it's about what happens to those ghost registrations in a state that automatically mails a ballot to every name on the rolls.
Weber made universal mail-in voting permanent for every California election.
That means 873,000 ballots went into the mail stream attached to registrations the federal government says should have been purged years ago.
Judicial Watch Has Now Forced Voter Roll Cleanups Across Eight States
The lawsuit details exactly how bad the county-level collapse has been.
20 California counties removed 50 or fewer inactive registrations between November 2022 and November 2024.
Ten of those counties reported zero removals.
For context: San Diego County, with 2.2 million registered voters, removed over 300,000 registrations under the same statute during the same period.
Census data shows California lost 660,000 residents to other states in 2024 alone – people whose names stayed on the rolls, eligible to receive a forwarded mail ballot.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton was direct: California has "a dirty voting rolls crisis – with thousands of old names on the rolls going back at least 10 years."
This isn’t a new allegation against a first-time offender.
Judicial Watch filed suit against California and Los Angeles County in December 2017 and forced a settlement in March 2019 that removed more than 1.2 million inactive names.
California agreed to clean up and then stopped doing it.
Harmeet Dhillon's Justice Department has already signaled where it stands.
When Judicial Watch sued Illinois over its own dirty voter rolls – 23 counties that removed a grand total of 100 registrations in a two-year period – DOJ filed a Statement of Interest backing Judicial Watch's position.
Dhillon's message was direct: "It is critical to remove ineligible voters from the registration rolls so that elections are conducted fairly, accurately, and without fraud."
California's numbers make Illinois look disciplined.
Judicial Watch has now forced voter roll cleanups in California, Oregon, Colorado, Kentucky, New York, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Ohio – with Oregon settling earlier this year and agreeing to review 800,000 names for removal, and Colorado removing 372,000 ineligible voters after a separate settlement.
States ignore the NVRA, Judicial Watch sues, courts order compliance, rolls get cleaned, and then states stop cleaning.
California is the only state that has run that cycle twice – broke a federal court settlement, let nearly 900,000 ghost registrations pile back up, and is now back in federal court answering for it during the same week its Secretary of State was on the ballot.
California made a promise in federal court and broke it – and now a judge is going to make Weber explain why 873,000 ghost registrations were still getting ballots in the mail on primary day.
Sources:
- "Judicial Watch Sues California to Clean Up 873,000 Inactive Voter Registrations on Rolls," Judicial Watch, May 28, 2026.
- Megan Barth, "Judicial Watch Exposes California's 873,000 'Ghost Voter' Crisis on Eve of June 2 Primary, Files Federal Lawsuit," California Globe, June 1, 2026.
- "Justice Department Files Statement of Interest in Illinois Case Concerning States' Obligations Under the National Voter Registration Act," U.S. Department of Justice, July 8, 2025.
- "Judicial Watch Lawsuit Settlement Causes Review and Removal of 800,000 Ineligible Voters from Oregon Voter Rolls," Judicial Watch, April 2026.
- "Judicial Watch Fights to Keep Elections Honest," Judicial Watch, February 2024.
