BOSTON — The state’s top election official is being sued by a conservative group with ties to former Republican President Donald Trump after denying access to state voter registration records.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court by the Ohio-based Voter Reference Foundation, alleges that Secretary of State Bill Galvin’s office is violating a provision of the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, requiring states to publicly share how they maintain their voter lists for a period of at least two years.
The complaint alleges that the group tried to get a copy of voter lists including names, dates of birth, party affiliation, home addresses and polling places but Galvin’s office refused to release the information. It argues that Galvin’s refusal to release the lists violates its First Amendment right to share the data online.
Lawyers for the foundation claim that Galvin’s office cited a Massachusetts law “deeming voter data to be non-public records under state open records law, even though that same statute makes the same data available to political parties, various committees, and whomever the secretary designates.”
“Massachusetts cannot hide behind state law to avoid its federal disclosure obligations,” the group’s lawyers wrote in the 25-page complaint. “Its restrictions on public access are preempted.”
In the lawsuit, the group said it is seeking to publish “publicly available Massachusetts voter data” on its website “so that the public may become and remain informed regarding Massachusetts elections and voter registration rolls” and to ensure oversight of the voter registration records.
“In many states, access to the data is prohibitively expensive, and members of the general public lack the knowledge to map the raw data in a usable manner,” the complaint states.
On the foundation’s website, voters can check their own voting status and voting history, “as well as those of their neighbors, friends, and others, and are thereby able to ‘crowdsource’ the process of rectifying any errors.””The public is enabled to check the validity of the data by recognizing common errors in larger data sets; for example, citizens could examine the data for their precinct and recognize many voters were given placeholder birthdates,” the group claimed. “This also allows citizens to encourage others to vote, increasing overall voter participation.”
The group said it isn’t seeking social security numbers, phone numbers, email addresses, and driver’s license numbers, and wouldn’t publish those records even if made available by the state elections office.
But the legal challenge comes amid an increasing number of lawsuits seeking to gain access to states’ voter rolls ahead of next month’s presidential election. Those groups have filed hundreds of public records requests across the country seeking to gain access to voter files. In most states, the disputes have landed in the courts.
In August, the Committee for Massachusetts Voter Identification Ballot Question filed a similar lawsuit in federal court after its request for a statewide voter registration list was denied by Galvin’s office. The outcome of that case is still pending.
Earlier this year, the Voter Reference Foundation filed a lawsuit in Pennsylvania challenging the state’s prohibition on sharing voter roll information.
In April, a federal judge ruled that New Mexico election officials violated public disclosure provisions of the National Voter Registration Act by refusing to provide voter rolls to the group and its public online database. The state has sued the group after it posted voter registration data on its website.
The foundation is a subsidiary of Restoration of America, a conservative social welfare organization that has received a sizable amount of its funding from Wisconsin billionaire Richard Uihlein, a major fundraiser for Trump’s presidential campaigns.
“America’s elections aren’t secure,” the group said in a video on its website, touting voter registration lawsuits against states. “It’s not a fringe conspiracy, it’s a fact.”
The Republican National Committee also is involved in efforts to challenge voter rolls ahead of the November election, many stemming from former Trump’s baseless claims the 2020 election was rigged against him.
Christian M. Wade covers the Massachusetts Statehouse for North of Boston Media Group’s newspapers and websites. Email him at cwade@cnhinews.com