Secret Service SECRETS!
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Secret Service SECRETS!

Illinois Settles Lawsuit, Agrees to Make Voter Registration List
Information Public

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We continue our success in ensuring cleaner elections.

Judicial Watch settled
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a federal election integrity lawsuit on behalf of the Illinois
Conservative Union against the state of Illinois, the Illinois State
Board of Elections, and its director. The settlement grants access to
the current centralized statewide list of registered voters in the
state for the past 15 elections.

This is a victory for all legal voters in Illinois. Voters will now
have the transparency that federal law requires in order to ensure
elections in Illinois are more honest and cleaner. Clean voter rolls
mean cleaner elections.

State officials had refused to allow the nonprofit and three lawfully
registered Illinois voters to obtain a copy of the state’s voter
registration list, despite their lawful request for those records
under federal law.

The State Board allowed access to the records but made any meaningful
review impossible, requiring the plaintiffs to travel to Springfield,
Illinois during limited working hours and review Illinois’ millions
of voter records one at a time on a computer terminal, with no ability
to sort or organize records.

We filed the lawsuit
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in
the United States District Court in the Northern District of Illinois
(_Illinois Conservative Union et al v. Illinois et al__._
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(No.
1:20-cv-05542)).

The settlement was approved by U.S. District Judge Sara L. Ellis, and
states:

> Pursuant to this Agreement, Defendants shall provide to Plaintiffs
> the current centralized statewide list of registered voters for
> Illinois (the “Illinois Voter Registration List”) in electronic
> format, with all fields provided to political committees, including
> but not limited to fields indicating the registrant’s full name
> … residential street address … email address … telephone
> number, county and state voter identification number, age of the
> registrant, and the registrant’s status (active or inactive) and
> the most recent date the entry was changed, and voting history for
> the last fifteen (15) elections.
The National Voter Registration Act of 1993
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(NVRA)
provides that states “shall make available for public inspection
and, where available, photocopying at a reasonable cost, all records
concerning the implementation of programs and activities conducted for
the purpose of ensuring the accuracy and currency of official lists of
eligible voters.”

When members of the Illinois Conservative Union sought access to
Illinois’ voter list, however, they were told they must view the
database one record at a time, on a single computer screen, during
“normal business hours,” at the State Board of Elections office in
Springfield, Illinois, which is 200 miles from where they live. There
are over 8 million voter registrations in Illinois. Judicial Watch
argued that Illinois’ arbitrary restrictions “make a mockery” of
federal law, “as much as a requirement that Plaintiffs wear
blindfolds.”

In 2021, Judge Ellis ruled on a motion
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in
the case that, “Plaintiffs have plausibly alleged that” Illinois
law “conflicts with” and “and frustrates the NVRA’s purpose of
providing voter information to the public to help ensure the accuracy
and currency of voter registration rolls.” She also allowed a claim
to proceed under the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment, on the ground that political committees in Illinois can
access copies of the voter registration database while ordinary
citizens cannot. The claims were made against Illinois’ chief state
elections official, Bernadette Matthews, the Acting Executive Director
of the Illinois State Board of Elections.

A forthcoming Judicial Watch study, based on recent census data and
information Illinois reported to the federal Election Assistance
Commission, reveals that 14% of Illinois’ counties have more
registered voters than citizens over 18, while Illinois as a whole has
close to 800,000 inactive registrants.

As several federal courts have recognized, the public records
provisions of the National Voter Registration Act were intended to
enhance the ability of private groups to monitor whether states are
removing ineligible voters from their voter rolls. In April 2020, a
federal court in Maryland
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noted
that organizations “such as Judicial Watch” have “the resources
and expertise that few individuals can marshal. By excluding these
organizations from access to voter registration lists,” the purpose
of the federal law is undermined. That court ordered Maryland to
produce complete voter registration records requested by Judicial
Watch.

As you know, we are a national leader in voting integrity and voting
rights. As part of its work, Judicial Watch assembled a team of highly
experienced voting rights attorneys who stopped discriminatory
elections in Hawaii, and cleaned up voter rolls in California, Ohio,
Indiana, and Kentucky, among other achievements
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Robert Popper, a Judicial Watch senior attorney, leads its election
law program. Popper was previously in the Voting Section of the Civil
Rights Division of the Justice Department, where he managed voting
rights investigations, litigations, consent decrees, and settlements
in dozens of states.

In April 2023, Pennsylvania settled
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with
us and admitted in court filings that it removed 178,258 ineligible
registrations in response to communications from Judicial Watch. The
settlement commits Pennsylvania and five of its counties to extensive
public reporting of statistics regarding their ongoing voter roll
clean-up efforts for the next five years.

In March 2023, Colorado agreed
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to
settle our NVRA lawsuit alleging that Colorado failed to remove
ineligible voters from its rolls. The settlement agreement requires
Colorado to provide Judicial Watch with the most recent voter roll
data for each Colorado county each year for six years.

In February 2023, Los Angeles County confirmed
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the
removal of 1,207,613 ineligible voters from its rolls since
last year, under the terms of a settlement agreement
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in
a federal lawsuit
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we
filed in 2017.

We settled
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a federal
election integrity lawsuit against New York City after the city
removed 441,083 ineligible names from the voter rolls and promised to
take reasonable steps going forward to clean its voter registration
lists.

Kentucky
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also
removed hundreds of thousands of old registrations after it entered
into a consent decree to end another Judicial Watch lawsuit.

In February 2022, we settled
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a
voter roll clean-up lawsuit against North Carolina and two of
its counties after North Carolina removed over 430,000 inactive
registrations from its voter rolls.

In March 2022, a Maryland court ruled in favor
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of
our challenge to the Democratic state legislature’s “extreme”
congressional gerrymander.

In May 2022, we sued
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Illinois
on behalf of Congressman Mike Bost and two other registered Illinois
voters to stop state election officials from extending Election Day
for 14 days beyond the date established by federal law. This
litigation is ongoing.

There is more work to be done and Judicial Watch will continue to do
the heavy lifting to help ensure our elections are fair and honest.

BREAKING: JUDICIAL WATCH SUES FOR RECORDS ON SECRET SERVICE PROTECTION
FOR UNACKNOWLEDGED GRANDDAUGHTER OF JOE BIDEN

The family of the president of the United States obviously has special
security needs, provided first and foremost by the Secret Service. So,
when a Biden family member evidently has no protection, it is an issue
of public concern. Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) for
all internal Secret Service communications regarding the provision or
potential provision of Secret Service protection for Navy Joan
Roberts, the 4-year-old daughter of Hunter Biden and grandchild of
President Joe Biden (_Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of Homeland
Security_
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(No.
1:23-cv-02028)).

On its website
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the Secret Service states that, under Title 18 of the United States
Code, Section 3056, the agency’s authority as provided by law
guarantees protection for the president and vice president and their
immediate families.

However, on June 6, 2022, the _Daily Mail_ reported
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that
President Biden refused to provide security for Navy Joan after her
mother, Lunden Roberts, reported to police that she had been
threatened by her ex-fiancé, cage fighter Princeton Foster.

We filed a FOIA request on May 2, 2023. On June 12, 2023, the Secret
Service issued a final response stating that no responsive records had
been located. We appealed, challenging the thoroughness of the search.
We then sued after the Secret Service failed to respond to the appeal
for:

> All reports, memoranda, and internal USSS electronic communications,
> including emails and text messages, regarding the provision or
> potential provision of USSS protection to Navy Joan Roberts, the
> daughter of Hunter Biden and granddaughter of President Joe Biden.
Hunter Biden had denied paternity, but a DNA test
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in
2019 proved he is in fact the father of Navy Joan Roberts and he has
been providing significant court-ordered child support.

President Biden has never publicly acknowledged that Navy Joan Roberts
is his grandchild. _The_ _New York Times_ reported
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earlier
this month: “In strategy meetings in recent years, aides have been
told that the Bidens have six, not seven, grandchildren, according to
two people familiar with the discussions…the president has not yet
met or publicly mentioned his other grandchild. His White House has
not answered questions about whether he will publicly acknowledge her
now that the child support case is settled.”

All of Joe Biden’s grandchildren can receive Secret Service
protection while he’s in office. We frankly can’t imagine any good
reason to deny security to this child.

MILLIONS MORE TO RECRUIT MINORITIES FOR JOBLESS BENEFITS AMID LOW
UNEMPLOYMENT

Bureaucracies never give up when it comes to spending your tax
dollars. As our _Corruption Chronicles _blog reports
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President
Biden’s Labor Department is on another crusade to spend more tax
dollars:

> U.S. unemployment is low and stable, yet the Biden administration
> keeps giving states millions of dollars to boost the number of
> minorities—especially non-English speaking or limited-English
> proficient—that sign up for government jobless benefits. The goal
> is to address racial disparities and promote “equitable access”
> to the program. The money—an unprecedented $260 million
>
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> flowing in early spring of 2022 to advance equity in state
> unemployment insurance. COVID-19 inspired the controversial project,
> according to the Department of Labor (DOL), the agency disbursing
> the funds. “Throughout the pandemic, disparities in access to
> benefits affected women, communities of color and other marginalized
> workers at a higher rate and often delayed delivery of much needed
> financial support and services,” the DOL announced last spring.
> “These disparities in access to unemployment insurance exposed
> serious real-world shortcomings in the outdated systems used to
> deliver state and territories unemployment insurance benefits.”
>
> Specifically, the Biden administration aims to address disparities
> in the administration and delivery of unemployment benefits by race,
> ethnicity, language proficiency and disability status. To accomplish
> it, the DOL has directed states to use the taxpayer dollars to
> “support innovative strategies and solutions to promote equitable
> access” to unemployment compensation. “This includes funding
> that will increase public awareness of the program so more people
> apply, improve service delivery so claimants receive their first
> benefits in a timely manner and develop a better understanding of
> the equity challenges that need to be addressed,” the labor agency
> revealed last year. State officials can also use a portion of their
> grant to evaluate the effectiveness of programs they create with the
> federal funds. “To become a more robust safety net and economic
> stabilizer, our unemployment insurance system must serve all workers
> fairly and equitably,” Labor Secretary Marty Walsh declared.
>
> The initial allocation of $20 million was split between three
> states—Oregon, Pennsylvania and Virginia—and the District of
> Columbia. Since then, the DOL has approved equity grants for 41
> states and jurisdictions, a recent agency filing
>
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> The document says that projects target a “wide range of
> underserved populations,” but identifies the top three as
> non-English or limited-English proficient, people with disabilities
> and low-income claimants with economic hardships. “States are
> continuing to use a diverse slate of strategies to promote equitable
> access to unemployment compensation programs,” the DOL writes.
> “Improving services to claimants and expanding access to services
> by improving technology or implementing new technology are primary
> areas of focus for most projects, with a core theme of resolving
> access barriers for underserved populations.” Some states are
> creating “customer outreach plans” that incorporate
> community-based groups representing the underserved populations.
>
> Even though unemployment remains low, a few days ago the
> administration allocated an additional $9.5 million
>
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to sign up
> more minorities for unemployment benefits. The latest equity grants
> will go to Arkansas, Louisiana and Vermont so officials can
> implement projects that seek to remove barriers related to race,
> age, ethnicity, language proficiency and other system issues that
> make it difficult for people to access unemployment insurance
> benefits. Arkansas will get the biggest chunk, $4,562,000, with
> Louisiana receiving $2,661,616 and Vermont $2,283,000 to expand
> outreach, promote awareness, provide translation services and
> address disadvantaged communities’ other needs, according to the
> DOL. Not that long ago, the administration bragged
>
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> about the record low unemployment rate among minorities,
> specifically black (5.4%) and Hispanic (4.5%) populations.
>
> The minority unemployment benefit drive is part of a larger Biden
> administration effort to advance racial equity and support for
> underserved communities through the federal government. The costly
> initiative was launched back in January 2021 when the president
> issued an executive order
>
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> claiming that “entrenched disparities” in laws, public policies,
> and private institutions have denied equal opportunity to
> individuals and communities and that the health and climate crises
> have exposed inequities while a “historic movement for justice has
> highlighted the unbearable human costs of systemic racism.”
> Following the order, Uncle Sam started cutting checks for the
> initiative and assigning special equity chiefs and commissions at
> agencies throughout the government.

Until next week,





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