Contact: Jill Farrell, Judicial Watch, 202-646-5172
 
WASHINGTON, Sept. 11, 2017 /Christian Newswire/ -- Judicial Watch Senior Attorney and Director of its Election Integrity Project Robert Popper will provide testimony to the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity on Tuesday, September 12, 2017, concerning the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA).

Date: September 12, 2017

Time: Panel begins 10 am ET, Popper to give testimony in the afternoon

Location: New Hampshire Institute of Politics
Saint Anselm's College
Manchester, New Hampshire

Prior to joining Judicial Watch, Popper worked for eight years, five as deputy chief of the Voting Section, in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, in which capacity he garnered numerous professional awards. In his role as the Director of the Election Integrity Project, Popper has spearheaded Judicial Watch efforts nationwide to ensure clean elections, enforcement of both Section 8 of the NVRA and the federal Help America Vote Act requiring states to maintain accurate voting rolls.

In his prepared testimony for the presidential election commission, Popper states:

The American people have come to believe that there are serious problems with our electoral system. One study from last year showed that Americans have little faith in the integrity of their elections and postulated that this partly explains low voter turnout. A Rasmussen poll from 2016 reported that only 41% of those polled believe "American elections are fair to voters." A Washington Post-ABC News poll from 2016 found that 46% of those polled believed that voter fraud happens either "somewhat" or "very" often.

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There are over 2,800 counties in states covered by the NVRA. Of these, 415, or about 15% of all covered counties, did not report sending any confirmation notices during the two-year period from 2014 to 2016. This fact suggests a widespread failure to comply with the NVRA. Moreover, of the counties that did report sending confirmation notices, another 581, or about 20% of the total, reported sending notices during the last two-year period to fewer than 5% of their registered voters. Given that the Census Bureau reports that about 11% of Americans move every year, these low rates also suggest that these counties are not diligently conducting voter list maintenance.

Counties' overall registration rates also reveal compliance issues. Our study showed that, in 462 U.S. counties, the number of voter registrations exceeded the number of citizens over the age of 18 who resided in those counties. In other words, those counties' registration rates exceeded 100% of the population eligible to register. Federal courts have repeatedly held that such an imbalance between registrations and age-eligible citizens is grounds for believing that a jurisdiction is not living up to its list maintenance obligations. These 462 counties, moreover, constitute about 17% of all U.S. counties covered by the NVRA where we have enough data to make these calculations.

MORE: www.judicialwatch.org/press-room/press-releases/judicial-watch-election-integrity-project-director-robert-popper-give-testimony-presidential-advisory-commission-election-integrity/