Public Interest Legal Foundation

PILF's board concentrates personnel drawn from prior government service, Republican Party legal organizations, and overlapping election-integrity groups. ² Board Chair Cleta Mitchell also leads the Conservative Partnership Institute's Election Integrity Network, chaired an ALEC election working group, and participated in the January 6, 2021 call between Donald Trump and Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger. Director Hans von Spakovsky served in the DOJ Civil Rights Division from 2002 to 2005 and subsequently ran the Heritage Foundation's Election Law Reform Initiative before moving to the Advancing American Freedom Meese Institute in January 2026. Director John Eastman was disbarred in connection with the Trump fake-electors scheme. Director David Norcross is a former RNC general counsel; Director Ken Blackwell is a former Ohio Secretary of State; Treasurer Neil Corkery has affiliations across multiple conservative donor-coordination structures.

The board's composition creates institutional ties to Heritage Foundation (von Spakovsky), to the Republican National Committee's legal operations (Norcross, Mitchell), and to state-election administration networks (Blackwell). Legal counsel Charlie Spies is a GOP election lawyer; outside counsel comes from the Dickinson Wright firm. ² Several board members hold concurrent positions in other election-integrity organizations, creating overlapping governance across the network.

IRS 990 filings (EIN 45-4355641) record PILF's revenue history from $1.26 million in 2012 to a trough of $562,000 in 2015, then growth to $2.20 million in 2017, $3.83 million in 2020, and $4.90 million in 2024, the organization's highest recorded year. ³ Net assets grew from $87,000 in 2012 to $2.29 million in 2024. ³ Senior staff compensation in 2024 included $274,000 for Adams, $171,000 for litigation director Noel Johnson, and $163,000 for litigation counsel Kaylan Phillips. ³

Identified foundation grants total $4.46 million over the period documented. The Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation (administered through Bradley Impact Fund) contributed $3.31 million between 2015 and 2024, designated for PILF's election law initiative. ³ The John William Pope Foundation granted $670,000 between 2014 and 2022, and Jaquish & Kenninger Foundation granted $475,000 between 2020 and 2023. ³ The Bradley Impact Fund also granted America First Legal Foundation $27.1 million in 2022, representing 61 percent of AFL's revenue that year, an indication of the Fund's scale relative to its PILF grants.

Revenue in 2020 and 2024 both exceeded prior-year figures by substantial margins, while the off-cycle years of 2015, 2018, and 2022 show relative troughs. ^{1 3} The three identified foundations account for roughly 90 percent of provenance-tracked funding; the majority of PILF's revenue comes from donors whose identities are not disclosed in publicly available 990 filings.

Review of filings indicates that PILF's litigation strategy centers on Section 8 of the NVRA, which requires states to conduct voter list maintenance ⁷. The organization has pursued two distinct legal theories: (1) that states that deny access to voter roll data violate the NVRA's public-inspection provision, and (2) that states fail to adequately remove ineligible registrants — specifically deceased voters, moved registrants, and alleged noncitizens.

Review of records shows that multiple PILF cases have been dismissed ⁷. PILF sued the City of Detroit (Winfrey, 2019–2020) and Pennsylvania's Secretary of the Commonwealth (Boockvar, 2020), both without success. In Michigan (Benson, filed 2021), PILF alleged the state failed to remove deceased voters; the district court dismissed in 2024, the appeal failed, and the Supreme Court denied certiorari on March 2, 2026. In Pennsylvania (Schmidt), PILF sought to establish that denial of voter roll access automatically confers standing to sue, a theory rejected by the Third Circuit's nexus requirement; the Supreme Court also denied cert on March 2, 2026. ⁶ Judicial Watch and the Center for Election Confidence filed amicus briefs supporting PILF's cert petitions. ⁶

PILF is also co-party with True the Vote in the TTV v. IRS case (DC Circuit, 2025–26), which challenges the IRS's treatment of election-integrity organizations. Adams previously served as True the Vote's counsel in 2013 Colorado voter roll cases. Connection #3302 Analysis of the litigation timeline indicates that the Trump DOJ filed suit against Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson on the same legal theory as PILF's dismissed case approximately two weeks after PILF's Supreme Court petition was denied ⁷.

Between 2021 and June 2025, Maureen Riordan served as PILF litigation counsel. In May 2025 she became Acting Chief of the DOJ Voting Section. Connection #3307 Beginning in July 2025, PILF adopted the practice of copying all voter-roll demand letters simultaneously to Riordan and to AAG Harmeet Dhillon. ⁴ On July 24, 2025, the DOJ sent a letter to Pennsylvania Secretary of State Al Schmidt citing PILF research figures directly: 19,489 cross-state duplicate registrants, 3,170 same-address duplications, and 321 placeholder birthdates. ⁵ The DOJ also filed an amicus brief supporting PILF in the Maine voter-roll case, PILF v. Bellows. Connection #3309

The DOJ's Civil Rights Division, overseen by Dhillon, filed enforcement actions against multiple states on voter roll maintenance grounds during the same period PILF was sending letters to the same offices, including Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Maine. Connection #3362 Riordan was succeeded as Acting Chief by Eric Neff in December 2025. Neff previously prosecuted the Konnech case relying on True the Vote evidence, creating a second personnel connection between PILF's peer organizations and the Voting Section leadership. Connection #3307

The simultaneous denial of PILF's two Supreme Court petitions on March 2, 2026 limits PILF's ability to compel voter roll access through independent litigation. ⁶