Federal judge throws out GOP bid to purge Michigan voter rolls

 A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit by the Republican National Committee  that asked Michigan to remove inactive voters from its voter rolls.

He concluded that the GOP could not prove more than "merely possible fraud." The decision comes amid a public dispute between state election officials and tech billionaire Elon Musk over the integrity of Michigan's voter rolls. Musk has spread false claims that the state has more registered voters than residents. Federal District Judge Jane Beckerling, a Biden appointee, dismissed the suit on procedural grounds, ruling that the RNC lacked standing to pursue the case. But Beckerling also wrote in her 30-page ruling that even if the RNC had standing to sue, it had barely presented enough evidence  that Michigan election officials had neglected their legal obligation to remove inactive voters from voter rolls. "The quality of the arguments does not allow the court to infer anything more than the mere possibility of fraud," Beckerling said, adding that Republicans presented weak "factual reasoning" based on U.S. Census data to buy into their claim that  voter rolls are bloated. Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson's office, the RNC and the DNC did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the ruling. The RNC sued Benson, a Democrat, accusing his office of overseeing the state's elections. The federal law at issue in the case -- the National Voter Registration Act, passed  with bipartisan support in 1993 -- requires states to make "reasonable efforts" to remove ineligible voters from their voter rolls. There are restrictions designed to prevent  voters from being removed from voter rolls. States cannot remove inactive voters until after two federal general elections. "Importantly," Beckerling wrote, the RNC proposed a remedy that "overturns the statutory mandate." The judge asked the state to force Michigan to "prevent people who are ineligible to vote from being registered to vote," even though the law actually requires states to "ensure that all eligible voters are registered to vote."