Judge sides with conservative group in its push to access, publish voter rolls online

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — New Mexico election officials violated public disclosure provisions of the National Voter Registration Act by refusing to provide voter rolls to a conservative group and its public online database, a federal judge has ruled.

The opinion and order Friday from Albuquerque-based U.S. District Court Judge James Browning mostly sided with the Voter Reference Foundation and its efforts to expand a free database of registered voters so that groups and individuals can take it upon themselves to try to find potential irregularities or fraud.

Election officials in several states and privacy advocates have raised alarms about a push by several conservative groups to gain access to state voter rolls, saying the lists could find their way into the hands of malicious actors and that voters could be disenfranchised through intimidation, possibly by canceling their registrations to avoid public disclosure of their home addresses and party affiliation.

New Mexico election law bans the publication of voter registration data. It restricts the use of the data to political campaigning and noncommercial government purposes. But Browning ruled that system “severely burdens the circulation of voter data among the public” and violates federal disclosure requirements.

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