Reasonable Efforts, Concrete Injuries: Sixth Circuit Clarifies NVRA List Maintenance and Public‑Disclosure Standing

Court: U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit

Date: May 6, 2025

Case: Public Interest Legal Foundation v. Jocelyn Benson (and ERIC, Inc., as Movant‑Appellee), No. 24-1255

Panel: Clay, White, and Davis, Circuit Judges

Introduction

This appeal tested two recurring questions under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), 52 U.S.C. § 20501 et seq.: (1) what constitutes a “reasonable effort” under NVRA § 8 for removing deceased registrants from voter rolls, and (2) what plaintiffs must show to establish Article III standing for claims under NVRA’s public-disclosure provision, § 8(i). The plaintiff, Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), a nonprofit focused on election integrity, alleged that Michigan’s Secretary of State (Jocelyn Benson) failed to adequately maintain the State’s voter registration lists by leaving deceased individuals on the rolls, and further failed to produce requested records related to list maintenance, including materials involving the State’s work with the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a nonprofit that assists states with voter‑file accuracy.

The district court granted summary judgment to the Secretary, concluding that Michigan’s removal program satisfied NVRA’s “reasonable effort” standard and that PILF’s public-records claim was moot. The Sixth Circuit affirmed, while sharpening two legal rules: (i) the NVRA’s “reasonable effort” clause carries its ordinary, non-quantified meaning—demanding rational, sensible steps rather than perfection or exhaustive methods; and (ii) organizational plaintiffs alleging a denial of NVRA records must demonstrate a concrete informational injury with downstream consequences, consistent with TransUnion and sister‑circuit decisions, not merely a statutory violation.

Summary of the Opinion

Discovery rulings: The court held it lacked jurisdiction to review unappealed magistrate orders denying depositions of the Secretary and a state analyst. As to ERIC, whose subpoena ruling was preserved, the court found no abuse of discretion and no prejudice from quashing the subpoena because PILF did not show how the sought discovery would have altered summary judgment.
Count I (List‑maintenance claim): Affirmed. Applying the plain meaning of NVRA § 20507(a)(4)(A), the court held that Michigan’s multi‑layered removal program—leveraging SSA data through the state’s CARS system, manual review of partial matches, public submissions, and ERIC reports—amounts to a “reasonable effort.” The NVRA does not require “quantifiable, objective” removal benchmarks, immediate removal, or exhaustion of all possible methods.
Count II (Public‑records claim): Dismissed for lack of Article III standing. Even if NVRA § 8(i) was violated, PILF identified no concrete, particularized downstream harm from the alleged denial. The court followed TransUnion and analogized to the Fifth Circuit’s Campaign Legal Center v. Scott and the Third Circuit’s 2025 PILF decision.

Analysis

Precedents Cited and Their Influence

Bellitto v. Snipes, 935 F.3d 1192 (11th Cir. 2019): Persuasive authority that reliance on reliable death records (e.g., state health records and SSA Death Index) constitutes a reasonable NVRA effort. The Sixth Circuit’s holding harmonizes with Bellitto and underscores that states need not exhaust every conceivable method.
TransUnion LLC v. Ramirez, 594 U.S. 413 (2021): Central to the standing analysis. A statutory violation alone does not confer Article III standing; plaintiffs must show concrete harm. The court used TransUnion to require “downstream consequences” for informational‑injury claims under NVRA § 8(i).
FEC v. Akins, 524 U.S. 11 (1998) and Public Citizen v. U.S. Department of Justice, 491 U.S. 440 (1989): The court read these public‑disclosure cases in light of TransUnion, consistent with Sixth Circuit precedent (Grae) that informational injuries still require concrete adverse effects; they do not create a per se standing rule.
Campaign Legal Center v. Scott, 49 F.4th 931 (5th Cir. 2022): Highly analogous. Advocacy organizations failed to show concrete downstream consequences from a denial of NVRA records; standing was lacking. The Sixth Circuit aligned with this approach.
Public Interest Legal Foundation v. Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, No. 23-1590 (3d Cir. Apr. 25, 2025): The Third Circuit rejected similar PILF standing theories for lack of evidence of specific plans or harms; the Sixth Circuit cited and followed this reasoning.
Standards of review and discovery: Kirilenko‑Ison (de novo summary judgment); Pittman and Lavado (discovery discretion and prejudice requirement); Hoven and McQueen (need to appeal magistrate orders to preserve review); Stiltner (discovery must be outcome‑determinative to defeat summary judgment).
Textualism canon cases: Plavcak; Donovan; Vander Boegh—used to justify reliance on ordinary meaning and 1993 dictionaries for “reasonable effort.”

Legal Reasoning

The court’s reasoning proceeds in two principal steps: first, defining “reasonable effort” under § 20507(a)(4)(A); second, requiring concrete informational injury for § 20507(i) standing.

1) Defining “reasonable effort” under NVRA § 8

Plain meaning controls: With no statutory definition, the court used contemporary dictionaries (circa 1993) to construe “reasonable” and “effort.” It adopted an ordinary-meaning synthesis: a serious attempt that is rational and sensible—neither extravagant nor perfect.
No quantified benchmarks: The court rejected PILF’s attempt to impose a “quantifiable, objective standard” on states. Nothing in § 8 supports numeric thresholds or exhaustive duties.
Application to Michigan:
- Michigan uses four layers: (i) SSA death data cross‑fed into CARS with automatic QVF updates for exact matches and manual review of partial matches; (ii) weekly SSA death indicators tied to license/ID renewal pre‑mailings; (iii) public submissions (e.g., family death certificates); and (iv) ERIC’s bimonthly potential‑decedent reports with manual BOE reviews.
- Results: 400,000–450,000 registrations cancelled due to death from 2019 to March 2023; Michigan consistently ranks near the top in removing deceased registrants nationally.
- Contextual metric: Even taking PILF’s asserted 27,000 “potentially deceased” registrants at face value, that figure is roughly 0.3% of Michigan’s 8.2 million registrants. The court deemed this compatible with “reasonable” efforts, particularly given ongoing, routine removals.
- Not required: direct QVF‑to‑SSA comparisons, use of the entire SSA index versus updates, eliminating processing pauses near elections, or instantaneous removal. The statute requires sensible efforts, not maximum attainable methods.
Legal versus factual question: Where operative facts are undisputed, whether those facts meet § 8’s “reasonable effort” standard is a legal conclusion fit for summary judgment.

2) Standing for NVRA § 8(i) public‑disclosure claims

TransUnion governs: A statutory entitlement to information does not automatically confer standing. Plaintiffs must show concrete, particularized injury, including “downstream consequences.”
PILF’s allegations were insufficient: General assertions that nondisclosure hampered its “research, educational, and remedial activities,” or impaired “institutional knowledge,” were too vague and unsupported. The record lacked specific plans, projects, or member-based harms tied to the requested records.
Alignment with sister circuits: The court expressly paralleled the Fifth Circuit (Campaign Legal Center) and the Third Circuit (2025 PILF decision), both requiring concrete downstream impacts beyond the abstract interest in public oversight.
Bottom line: Count II is dismissed for lack of Article III standing. The court did not need to reach mootness and affirmed on the alternative jurisdictional ground, consistent with the principle that an appellate court may affirm on any ground supported by the record.

Discovery Rulings and Appellate Jurisdiction

Preservation matters: Because PILF did not appeal the magistrate judge’s orders denying the depositions of Secretary Benson and the state analyst (Talsma) to the district court, the Sixth Circuit lacked jurisdiction to review those rulings.
ERIC subpoena: As to the quashed subpoena to ERIC (properly appealed), the court found no abuse of discretion. PILF failed to show “actual and substantial prejudice,” i.e., how the requested ERIC materials would have precluded summary judgment.
Rule 56(d): Although PILF raised a Rule 56(d) motion below, its appellate briefing focused on the discovery denials themselves. The court reiterated that at summary judgment a party must show that the sought discovery would likely change the outcome.

The Court’s Approach to Summary Judgment

De novo review: The court viewed undisputed facts in the light most favorable to PILF, then applied the statute’s ordinary meaning to those facts.
Legal determination on an undisputed record: When the material facts of a statewide list‑maintenance program are not genuinely disputed, whether those practices meet § 8’s “reasonable effort” standard is an issue of law suitable for resolution at summary judgment.

Impact

On NVRA List‑Maintenance Litigation in the Sixth Circuit

Controlling framework: The Sixth Circuit adopts a plain‑meaning, non‑quantified “reasonable effort” standard. Plaintiffs cannot demand precision metrics, zero backlogs, or exhaustion of all conceivable methods.
Safe harbor indicators: Programs using reliable death data (SSA, state vital records), regular automated and manual matching, and credible third‑party inputs like ERIC will typically satisfy § 8, especially when removal is demonstrably ongoing and systematic.
Summary judgment posture: Defendants can obtain summary judgment on an undisputed operational record; plaintiffs must generate genuine disputes of material fact about unreasonableness, not merely propose incremental improvements.

On NVRA Public‑Disclosure Suits

Standing tightened: Organizational plaintiffs must plead and prove concrete, particularized “downstream consequences” from a denial of NVRA records—e.g., specific planned publications, audits, member education initiatives, or litigation activities stymied by the missing data.
Membership and nexus: Absent voters or members within the jurisdiction or specific projects impaired, generalized “oversight” or “monitoring” interests won’t suffice. This aligns the Sixth Circuit with the post‑TransUnion trajectory in the Fifth and Third Circuits.
Strategic pleading: Plaintiffs should document concrete uses and timetables for requested records at the complaint stage and support those assertions with evidence at summary judgment.

On Discovery Practice

Appeal preservation is critical: Parties must timely seek district‑court review of magistrate discovery rulings under 28 U.S.C. § 636(b)(1)(A), or they forfeit appellate review.
Prejudice showing required: To overturn discovery limits, appellants must articulate precisely how the denied discovery would likely change the summary‑judgment outcome.
Third‑party subpoenas (like ERIC): Courts may view expansive third‑party discovery as peripheral or “fishing,” particularly when core program operations are otherwise documented by the state’s own records.

For Election Officials and ERIC

Validation of layered programs: Using SSA data through state systems, manual reviews, and ERIC feeds is a strong exemplar of “reasonable” NVRA compliance.
No mandate to adopt every proposed enhancement: The NVRA does not require direct QVF‑to‑SSA comparisons, background sweeps of the entire SSA index, or elimination of processing pauses around elections, absent evidence that current practices are irrational or senseless.

Complex Concepts Simplified

“Reasonable effort” (NVRA § 8): A sensible, good‑faith program to remove ineligible registrants (including the deceased). It need not be perfect, instantaneous, or exhaustive; it must be rational and ongoing.
Informational injury and “downstream consequences”: Even if a statute grants access to records, a plaintiff must show concrete harm from not receiving them—like a specific report they could not publish, a planned voter‑education campaign they could not run, or a member’s rights that were directly impacted.
Standing vs. mootness: Standing asks whether a plaintiff had a concrete injury at filing; mootness asks whether the dispute remains live. Here, the court held PILF never had standing on Count II, so it did not reach mootness.
Summary judgment: A case can be decided without trial if there’s no genuine dispute of material fact and one side is entitled to judgment as a matter of law.
Magistrate‑judge discovery rulings: To obtain appellate review, a party must first seek review by the district judge. Skipping that step generally bars appellate jurisdiction.

Unanswered Questions and Limits

Floor, not ceiling: The opinion sets a baseline for reasonableness under § 8 but does not opine on the minimum acceptable program if fewer safeguards are used or if results are materially worse.
Quantitative thresholds: The court declines to adopt any numeric test (e.g., tolerable percentages of potential decedents on rolls), leaving future disputes to case‑specific records.
Scope of public‑records access: The court resolves Count II on standing rather than statutory interpretation or mootness, leaving some contours of § 8(i) unresolved in the Sixth Circuit.

Conclusion

Public Interest Legal Foundation v. Benson establishes two consequential guideposts in the Sixth Circuit’s NVRA jurisprudence. First, NVRA § 8’s “reasonable effort” standard bears its ordinary meaning: a rational, sensible program suffices; perfection and exhaustive measures are not required. Michigan’s layered reliance on SSA data, state records, public submissions, and ERIC satisfied this standard on an undisputed record. Second, an NVRA § 8(i) public‑records plaintiff must demonstrate concrete, downstream consequences from any denial of records to establish Article III standing; generalized organizational interests or abstract oversight goals will not do. The court’s discovery analysis further underscores the need to preserve appellate issues and to show outcome‑determinative prejudice.

Taken together, the opinion provides clear, administrable rules for election officials and litigants: states that build and document sensible, multi‑modal list‑maintenance programs can expect to prevail, often at summary judgment, while organizations seeking NVRA records must plead and prove specific harms tied to concrete plans, projects, or member interests. The decision thus advances the NVRA’s dual aims—accurate rolls and protected voter participation—through pragmatic administration and rigorous Article III discipline.