An election integrity group called the Voter Reference Foundation (VRF) filed a federal lawsuit against New Mexico officials to ensure publication of the state's voter rolls.
“The taxpayers of New Mexico pay for election administration, and they have an absolute right to view the records that are produced,” Doug Truax, founder and president of Restoration Action, which created VRF, said in a news release.
VRF sued New Mexico's secretary of state, Maggie Toulouse Oliver, and attorney general, Hector Balderas, over their refusal to make the state's voter rolls available to the public, according to the news release.
VRF operates VoteRef.com, which is a national election transparency initiative. The website said that its goal is to provide the public with access to official government data, including voter registration rolls, for the purpose of transparency and encouraging voter participation.
So far, VRF has published the voter rolls in 22 states plus Washington, D.C., according to the news release. This amounts to roughly half the population of the United States.
VRF is “not going to be deterred by partisan election officials who believe the election records taxpayers pay for are their personal possessions,” Truax said. “The public has a right to see them and if they try to block us, we will assert that right in court.”
The lawsuit asks the court to “immediately declare that VRF has the right to show the public the voter rolls they pay for with their tax dollars," the news release said.
The lawsuit alleges that Oliver “has made public statements that falsely characterize VRF’s publication of the voter rolls as illegal,” according to the news release. “Oliver has a history of bias when dealing with public records requested by those she doesn’t agree with politically,” the release said.