Judge says state must disclose voter rolls to group

SANTA FE, N.M. — 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 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 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.

The New Mexico secretary of state’s office will appeal the order, agency spokesman Alex Curtas said.

The Voter Reference Foundation’s Voteref.com database includes information from 32 states and the District of Columbia. It is run by Gina Swoboda, an organizer of former President Donald Trump’s 2020 re-election campaign in Arizona who is now chair of that state’s Republican Party.