By MORGAN LEE (Associated Press)
A federal judge in New Mexico said that state election officials broke the law by not giving voter rolls to a conservative group for their online database.
On Friday, U.S. District Court Judge James Browning supported the Voter Reference Foundation's goal of expanding a free database of voters, allowing people and groups to search for possible problems or fraud.
Some election officials and privacy advocates worry that conservative groups accessing state voter rolls might lead to misuse, intimidation, and disenfranchisement of voters.
New Mexico's election law forbids sharing voter registration data, but the judge said this rule restricts public access and violates federal requirements.
Browning wrote that the ban on data sharing makes it hard for people to identify voter registration issues.
The judge's decision was influenced by a previous ruling that Maine had to release its voter list to another conservative group for independent audits.
The foundation's VoteRef.com database has information from 32 states and the District of Columbia, and is led by Gina Swoboda, a former organizer for Donald Trump's 2020 campaign and newly elected chair of the Arizona Republican Party.
Swoboda expressed satisfaction with the court's decision, stating that the public should have access to voter lists to ensure proper maintenance and transparency in the elections process.
Swoboda did not mention when the New Mexico voter list might go online, but the foundation had previously posted the records in 2021 which led to legal action. The foundation then removed the information and filed a lawsuit.
The New Mexico secretary of state's office plans to appeal the ruling, according to spokesman Alex Curtas.
Maggie Toulouse Oliver, who is a Democrat and the Secretary of State, will keep working hard to support the protection of voters’ personal information and encourage voter participation, as stated by Curtas in an email.
Curtas praised parts of the judge’s ruling that rejected the foundation’s claims that New Mexico violated free speech rights by restricting the use of voter information.
Claims of widespread voter fraud, which were largely driven by Trump's belief that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, are motivating conservative groups to seek voter rolls through lawsuits in several states, including Pennsylvania.
The Pennsylvania Office of Open Records declined to provide voter information to the Voter Reference Foundation, stating that making it public would increase the risk of identity theft or misuse of the information for all registered voters.
Pennsylvania officials won in state court, and in February, the foundation sued in federal court to obtain the voter rolls by citing provisions of the National Voter Registration Act.
