Judicial Watch, Allied Educational Foundation File Amici Brief Asking Supreme Court to Affirm Standing, Allow Access to Voter Records

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch announced today it filed an amici curiae (friends of the court) brief along with the Allied Educational Foundation (AEF) to the Supreme Court of the United States, asking the court to reverse the Third Circuit’s decision denying the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) standing to sue for voter information guaranteed under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).

The Public Interest Legal Foundation is a nonprofit, public interest law firm dedicated to election integrity that is suing for access to Pennsylvania’s voter rolls following a failure to disclose an estimated 100,000 noncitizen registered voter records. Pennsylvania officials reportedly admitted that “for decades, the Department of Motor Vehicles had allowed non-U.S. citizens to register to vote through the state’s ‘motor voter’ system.”

The Judicial Watch amici brief comes in the case Public Interest Legal Foundation v. Al Schmidt, Secretary of Pennsylvania, et al. (No. 1590, 1591, 3045, 379)), which is on appeal from the Third Circuit where the court denied access to public records requested under the NVRA’s public-disclosure provision. The issue in the case is whether the Virginia-based nonprofit has standing to sue under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).

In their amici brief, Judicial Watch and AEF argue:

The denial of access to public records requested under the NVRA’s public-disclosure provision, 52 U.S.C. § 20507(i), inflicts a concrete informational injury deeply rooted in centuries of common-law tradition.

The Third Circuit’s decision … departs from this precedent by imposing a novel “nexus” requirement, demanding plaintiffs prove downstream harms beyond the denial itself. This ruling exacerbates a sharp and growing circuit split. Circuits like the Fourth adhere to this Court’s framework, finding standing upon denial alone.

The Third Circuit’s decision contains serious legal errors and directly conflicts with longstanding Supreme Court precedent. This Court has held that a person who is denied requested public records suffers a concrete injury … [The Third Circuit adopted] a new requirement [that] conflicts with previous rulings by this Court on this issue.

“This case shows the urgent need for citizenship verification for voting. The Department of Justice should follow up with a national investigation,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Judicial Watch has several federal lawsuits to clean up potentially millions of names from the voter rolls.”

The Allied Educational Foundation is a charitable and educational foundation dedicated to improving the quality of life through education. In furtherance of that goal, the Foundation has engaged in a number of projects, which include, but are not limited to, educational and health conferences domestically and abroad. AEF has partnered frequently with Judicial Watch to fight government and judicial corruption and to promote a return to ethics and morality in the nation’s public life.

Judicial Watch is 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.

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.

On October 8, 2025, oral arguments were held in the U.S. Supreme Court in a historic case filed by Judicial Watch on behalf of Congressman Mike Bost and two presidential electors, who are before the court to vindicate their standing to challenge an Illinois law allowing the counting of ballots received up to 14 days after Election Day (Rep. Michael J. Bost, Laura Pollastrini, and Susan Sweeney v. The Illinois State Board of Elections and Bernadette Matthews (No. 1:22-cv-02754, 23-2644, 24-568)).

Judicial Watch recently filed a brief to the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of the Libertarian Party of Mississippi, opposing the State of Mississippi’s attempt to overturn the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit’s decision, which struck down a law allowing ballots received after Election Day to be counted.

Federal courts in Oregon, California and Illinois recently ruled that Judicial Watch’s lawsuits against those states may proceed forcing them to clean their voter rolls.

Judicial Watch announced in May that its work led to the removal of more than five million ineligible names from voter rolls nationwide.

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