For John Lott, public access to voter rolls is a simple, common sense way of ensuring transparent, honest elections.
“Voters should be able to see that the number of people listed as having voted on registration rolls matches the number of ballots certified as cast,” the political commentator and economist told the New Mexico Sun.
That access, he added, should be at a minimal, or no, cost.
“It costs nothing to email a file to someone,” he said.
The latest battle over voter roll access and cost is playing out in New Mexico where a voter integrity group, the Voter Reference Foundation (VRF), filed a federal lawsuit against New Mexico’s Attorney General Hector Balder and Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver, who declared that VFR’s posting of the rolls illegal. The group, which has posted the voter rolls of 22 other states and Washington, D.C. on its site VoteRef.com, removed New Mexico’s voter information while its legal action there is pending.
The VRF, and Republican candidate for governor Rebecca Dow, also object to the $5,400 cost of access to the rolls, with Dow telling the New Mexico Sun that it gives access to the political elite but “shuts out the average New Mexican.”
States differ in how much they charge for copies of their voter rolls and to whom they grant access.
Cleta Mitchell, who chairs the Conservative Partnership Institute’s Election Integrity Network, says that Virginia charges $12,000 for a copy, unless the entity seeking the copy is a candidate or political party.
“It really is a barrier,” she told the New Mexico Sun.
Citing another example, she said that access to Pennsylvania’s rolls is affordable, but pointed to a study by Verity Vote that shows the state is only one of four that allows third parties to access its SURE system (Statewide Uniform Registry of Electors) via an online voter registration web application.
The third parties “also have the ability to grant access to other ‘partner organizations,’” the study said.
Mitchell said that the state “has given direct access to its voter data to dozens of leftist groups, without the necessity of having to purchase another copy each time.”
In October, Pennsylvania Senate Republicans filed a lawsuit in Commonwealth Court over Democrat Attorney General Josh Shapiro’s attempt to stop the caucus’s subpoena of voting records as part of a forensics audit of the 2020 General Elections and the 2021 Primary Elections. The caucus won a preliminary ruling, but final ruling in the case is pending. Shapiro is a candidate for governor.
VRF’s New Mexico lawsuit argues that the state’s law governing election transparency violates the First and Fifth Amendments. It’s asking for a declaratory judgment that VRF can continue providing the voter rolls to the public, and for a preliminary and permanent injunction.
“We are not going to be deterred by partisan election officials who believe the election records taxpayers pay for are their personal possessions,” Doug Truax, founder and president of Restoration Action, which created VRF, said in a statement announcing the lawsuit. “The public has a right to see them and if they try to block us, we will assert that right in court.”
Truax also said that court battles in states that banned the publication of voter rolls are likely.
