Oregon Settles Voter Roll Lawsuit, Agrees to Share Election Data With Conservative Group
Why It Matters
Election integrity advocates have long argued that bloated voter rolls create vulnerabilities in the electoral system — and Oregon’s settlement of a federal lawsuit highlights just how far some states have drifted from their legal obligations. The outcome could signal broader pressure on states across the country to tighten list maintenance practices, including in neighboring states across the Pacific Northwest.
What Happened
Oregon Secretary of State Tobias Read has agreed to settle a lawsuit filed by Judicial Watch, the Constitution Party of Oregon, and two individual plaintiffs, who accused the state of failing to properly maintain its voter rolls as required under federal law.
Under the settlement finalized last week, Read committed to providing annual voter data to Judicial Watch for five years. The plaintiffs dropped their suit in exchange. Read, a Democrat, has not conceded that Oregon was violating federal law, but his office moved proactively earlier this year to address the backlog of inactive registrations at the heart of the dispute.
The lawsuit, filed in 2024, alleged Oregon was not complying with the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which requires states to cancel registrations of voters who fail to respond to inactivity notices and miss two consecutive federal elections. A 2023 report cited in the suit found that 19 of Oregon’s 36 counties had removed zero voters from the rolls between November 2020 and November 2022, while 10 additional counties had removed 11 or fewer voters during that period. Combined, those 29 counties reported over 2.4 million voter registrations but removed just 36 during the two-year window.
By the Numbers
- ~800,000 voters were labeled inactive in Oregon’s system as of January 2026, some for nearly a decade
- ~3 million active registered voters in Oregon
- ~160,000 inactive registrations canceled by Read’s January action
- ~640,000 additional inactive voters now on track for removal under updated notification procedures
- 36 total voter registrations removed by 29 counties over a two-year reporting period, despite more than 2.4 million registrations on file in those counties
Root of the Problem
Read’s office traced the backlog to a 2017 change made under Republican Secretary of State Dennis Richardson. That change quietly removed language from voter inactivity notices informing recipients that their registration would be canceled if they did not respond or vote in upcoming federal elections. Without that specific warning, Read argued, Oregon lacked legal standing to remove those voters from the rolls.
The Secretary of State’s office said it does not know why Richardson’s administration altered that language. In January, Read required county officials to cancel approximately 160,000 registrations that had been inactive since 2017, and directed them to restore the cancellation language in future notices — clearing the way for the remaining inactive registrations to eventually be purged.
Read’s spokesperson said the office moved to settle rather than continue litigation because “our office did not want to waste further taxpayer time and money when the issue was resolved.”
Judicial Watch’s Take
Robert Popper, an attorney representing Judicial Watch, credited Read for the steps taken, calling Oregon “low-hanging fruit” in terms of enforcement opportunities. Judicial Watch has pursued similar settlements against Colorado, Maryland, and other states over the past decade.
Popper acknowledged his group has no documented evidence of widespread voter fraud in Oregon or elsewhere linked to inactive registrations. His stated goal is simply legal compliance. “We just want compliance,” he said.
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton was more pointed, saying in a release that “dirty voter rolls mean dirty elections.”
Zoom Out
The settlement comes as Oregon’s overall election integrity picture faces additional scrutiny. The state previously disclosed that a flaw in its automatic voter registration program — linked to driver’s license applications — resulted in noncitizens being added to voter rolls. Oregon has since revised that process.
At the federal level, President Trump issued an executive order earlier this year targeting mail-in voting procedures. Oregon and several other states have challenged that order in court. Meanwhile, the U.S. Supreme Court has signaled it may end the practice of accepting mail ballots arriving after Election Day — a change that would significantly affect Oregon, which conducts elections entirely by mail. For more on how Oregon voters are navigating this election cycle, see nearly 100 local measures appearing on primary ballots statewide.
What’s Next
Judicial Watch will monitor the data Oregon shares annually under the settlement terms. Popper made clear the organization will pursue additional legal action if the state falls short of its commitments. “If we have to sue, we’ll sue,” he said. Oregon’s updated voter notification process will gradually reduce the remaining pool of roughly 640,000 inactive registrants as they cycle through the required federal election periods without voting or responding. For more on Oregon’s political landscape, see the latest takeaways from the Oregon GOP governor debate.
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