Fix California’s Voter Roll Cleanup Successes and Voter Registration Sprint

In July of 2021, Richard “Ric” Grenell’s Fix California started a statewide inspection of the 58 counties’ voter rolls.

As the Globe reported at the time, “California’s November 3, 2020 election was marred by significant voting and registration irregularities, the Globe reported in June, following an alarming report by the Election Integrity Project California.”

Grenell, the former Ambassador to Germany and President Donald Trump’s former Director of National Intelligence, says in California, state and county election officials have abandoned their responsibility to protect elections and ensure that the voices of Californians are heard. Fix California is committed to holding these officials accountable while establishing a better process that protects every legal vote.

Grenell’s “Fix” for California is progressing better than anyone imagined. The Globe spoke with Grenell Monday about the progress.

“All of the counties were given the legal finger wag of ‘I’ll see you in court’ if they didn’t comply with our request to inspect records related to county voter list maintenance obligations, through California Public Records Act requests,” Grenell said. “Many have been scrambling to tell us how they are already complying.”

“But every county in California has responded.”

Grenell anticipates a shrinking of the voter rolls as they get cleaned up. “They are all moving in the right direction,” he said.

As Grenell has explained in prior conversations as well as Monday’s, “this is not a sexy, quick fix like one hyped-up statewide race. This is a four-year campaign to fix California and to do the long-term reforms that we know we need.”

While Fix California is in it for the long game, “the urgency is now,” he said but notes that this work will not stop at the November 2022 election. “We’re not just helping one campaign – this will help state representatives, congressional races, dog catcher, school board and other local races,” Grenell said. “And we will feel the impact in November 2022 for sure.”

These public records requests allows Fix California to cross check voter data with the California Secretary of State, Department of Motor Vehicles, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Postal Service’s National Change of Address database, California Attorney General, any California Superior Court, the County Health Systems, county and city district attorneys’ offices, and county and city election departments.

This is cross checking which should have been going on all along by counties. And that’s Grenell’s concern: “through our work on the data front, we are identifying key areas where there appears to be high concentrations of inaccurate or poorly maintained voter rolls.”

Grenell is right. As the Globe reported, California has 1.8 million more registered voters than it should – that we know of.

Fix California is looking for inactive registrations, voter registrations cancelled, registrants not satisfying the citizenship requirements for registration, deceased registrants, individuals who moved out of state, the number of voter applicants providing applications to vote with either a blank affirmation of U.S. Citizenship or an affirmation of non-citizenship for 2016 to date, out-of-state change of address requests.

Fix California is also having success this year in engaging unregistered conservative voters through their digital operation. Thousands have already engaged in this preliminary engagement phase and the success has been extremely efficient for the initial $250,000 investment, Grenell said. “Conservatives are gaining traction.”

This can be significantly credited to anti-Gov. Newsom sentiment, complemented by pro-2nd Amendment, pro-police sentiment, the economy, inflation and cost of living issues.

“We’ve got to keep the momentum going for the next several years,” Grenell said. “In California, it’s a five-year process.”