Pennsylvania's Department of State has agreed to remove deceased people from its voting rolls under conditions of a settlement in a lawsuit filed by The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) – a US legal group that seeks to purge ineligible voters from electoral lists nationwide.
Pennsylvania agreed to run a cross-check between its eligible-voter database and the federal lists of deceased citizens in the state, removing the latter from voter rolls. Thus the state will no longer send mail-in voting ballots to 'dead people', a move that will further limit the possibility of voter fraud in future elections.
"This marks an important victory for the integrity of elections in Pennsylvania. The Commonwealth’s failure to remove deceased registrants created a vast opportunity for voter fraud and abuse. It is important to not have dead voters active on the rolls for 5, 10, or even 20 years. This settlement fixes that", a PILF statement reads.
The agreement also includes a provision under which Pennsylvania will order each county commission to "promptly cancel the registrations" of the deceased, whose names had previously remained in voter lists.
Still on Voter Rolls After Twenty Years of Being Dead
The lawsuit, which PILF filed right after the 2020 election day, demanded Pennsylvania authorities fix a failure "to reasonably maintain voter registration records under federal and state law". According to the legal group, some 21,000 deceased individuals remain on the state voter lists, with 92% of that group dead for over a year. The organisation found at least 197 registrants who have been dead for at least twenty years, but were still "eligible" to vote under Pennsylvania records.
It is not yet known, how many records Pennsylvania State will correct under the conditions of the settlement.
Claims about 'dead voters' who allegedly voted during the 2020 electoral cycle were actively peddled by the Trump campaign as a part of its voter fraud allegations. The ex-POTUS legal team took these accusations to court, but failed to win any of the cases. Trump and some of his allies continue to push the claims that Democratic state authorities rigged the election, stealing the Republican victory in the presidential race.
