(Jacob Bruns, Headline USA) A federal judge has ruled that the state of New Mexico violated election disclosure laws in its refusal to make public the state’s voter rolls, ABC News reported Tuesday.
Specifically, New Mexico election officials violated the National Voter Registration Act according to U.S. District Court Judge James Browning.
In his ruling, Browning reportedly sided largely with the Voter Reference Foundation, a conservative election watchdog group, asserting that New Mexico failed to uphold its responsibility to run transparent elections by hiding vital information from the public.
According to the judge, New Mexico’s current practice “severely burdens the circulation of voter data among the public,” adding that unless such information can be seen by the public, voter rolls will have to be hidden away.
“The data sharing ban largely deprives individuals and entities of the ability to engage with disclosed records in such a way that facilitates identification of voter registration-related irregularities,” Browning continued.
Browning’s ruling has support from conservatives.
Gina Swoboda, a leader of the Voter Reference Foundation and Arizona Republican Party chair, said that she and the Republican Party are “very gratified” that the court has “upheld the right of the public to have meaningful access to vote rolls.”
For Swoboda, there is no doubt that the NVRA is meant to promote the transparency of voter rolls–rolls hidden away particularly in swing states that engaged in suspect election practices in 2020.
“The intent of the public disclosure provision of the National Voter Registration Act is clear,” she wrote. “Namely, to allow the public to view the voter lists and associated list maintenance records to ensure proper voter list maintenance is being conducted.”
On the other hand, John Davisson, director of litigation at the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, argued that such rulings violate the privacy rights of individual voters.
