The Voter Reference Foundation (VRF) applauds the decision of a federal judge in Massachusetts which, in effect, amplifies VRF’s mission to make elections more transparent in America.
In a thorough decision, Chief Judge Denise Casper of the District of Massachusetts declared a summary judgment victory for VRF over Massachusetts Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin, who was attempting to block access to public voter rolls.
Though the Secretary conceded that Massachusetts’ voter rolls must be made available under the National Voter Registration Act, he told the Court that VRF had to make separate requests to each of the Commonwealth’s 351 election officials, rather than get the list directly from him. The Court rejected this administrative chicanery and the Secretary’s game of playing favorites by providing the same records to his allies while he was simultaneously making VRF jump through unnecessary hoops at its own expense.
In doing so, the Court made another important ruling: that VRF has standing to sue in federal court to vindicate its rights under the NVRA because the injuries it experiences when states refuse to comply with federal law are real, concrete, and closely connected to the NVRA’s purposes. In so holding, the Court acknowledged that all of the NVRA’s purposes are equally important. That includes election integrity and list accuracy, as well as increasing voter registration.
“This is yet another victory for us from courts who recognize federal law requires transparency of voter rolls,” said Doug Truax, Founder and CEO of Restoration of America, parent organization of VRF. “We won’t stop until all 50 states make their voter rolls easily available to the public.”
VRF previously won a similar court decision in New Mexico, which was upheld by the Tenth Circuit.
Voter Reference Foundation (https://www.voterreferencefoundation.com/) was founded on the principle that election integrity starts with transparency. The place to start is our bloated, inaccurate voter registration rolls. The ultimate goal of VRF is to increase voter participation while improving the quality of election data.
To accomplish this goal, VRF posts voter rolls on its VoteRef.com website. VoteRef.com has published 42 states and the District of Columbia, although several states are off-line pending court challenges by anti-transparency public officials.
The states are: Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming, along with the District of Columbia.