PHX Reporter

The Voter Reference Foundation, an election integrity group, is suing officials in New Mexico to force publication of voter rolls.

The foundation announced that it would sue New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver and Attorney General Hector Balderas over the publication of the state's voter rolls, citing a “lack of transparency” as a reason the voting records need to be published, Just the News reported March 30.

“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, said in a release from the foundation. “The public has a right to see them, and if they try to block us, we will assert that right in court.”

Nonprofit corporation Restoration Action started the foundation, Just the News said. 

The lawsuit alleges that New Mexico’s laws concerning the publication of voter data violate the First and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution, since they are too vague fail “to give notice as to what uses are permissible and which are prohibited."

The foundation filed a First Amendment lawsuit March 28 and asked the U.S. District Court in Albuquerque to uphold the organization's right to publish the voter rolls. The foundation alleged that the lawsuit is a result of Oliver’s false claims that the foundation illegally published New Mexico's voter rolls.

The complaint stated Oliver has a history of refusing to release voting records, having refused when former President Donald Trump requested them in 2017.

"The taxpayers of New Mexico pay for election administration, and they have an absolute right to view the records that are produced," Truax said. "Confidence in American elections is at a low ebb, and one reason is a lack of transparency."

The foundation requested a declaratory judgment to allow it to publish voter rolls and an injunction to prevent Oliver and Balderas "from enforcing any statute in violation of Plaintiffs' rights," the lawsuit said.

VoteRef.com, a website operated by the foundation, contains 20 states in its voter roll database. Arizona is not one of them, but site administrators hope to add all remaining states before the end of 2022, according to a release from the foundation.