SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) — A federal judge says New Mexico election regulators and prosecutors discriminated against a Republican-backed group by denying them access to voter registration rolls.
Friday’s ruling bars the state from refusing to turn over voter data to the Voter Reference Foundation, bolstering the organization’s commitment to expanding a free database of registered voters that groups and individuals can use to look for potential irregularities or fraud.
Prosecutors plan to appeal the ruling, said Lauren Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for the New Mexico Department of Justice.
The website VoteRef.com recently restored the rolls of registered voters in New Mexico to its searchable database of registered voters, including street addresses, party affiliation and whether voters participated in recent elections.
Election officials in several states and privacy advocates have raised alarms about an effort by several conservative groups to gain access to state voter rolls. They say the rolls could fall into the hands of malicious actors and voters could be disenfranchised through intimidation, possibly by canceling their registrations to avoid having their home addresses and party affiliations made public.
But U.S. District Judge James Browning of Albuquerque ruled that the state’s election supervisors committed viewpoint discrimination and free speech violations by denying the Voter Reference Foundation access to voter data and referred the case to state prosecutors.
The foundation’s VoteRef.com database contains voter information from more than 32 states and the District of Columbia. The database is run by Gina Swoboda, chair of the Arizona Republican Party and organizer of former President Donald Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign in Arizona.
Browning previously ruled that New Mexico authorities violated the disclosure provisions of the National Voter Registration Act by refusing to provide voter rolls to the same foundation, ignoring a provision of state law that limits the use of voter registration data.
The VoteRef.com site does not say who people voted for. It maintains confidentiality under a program that protects victims of domestic violence or stalking.
Also remaining confidential are the speeches of more than 100 publicly elected or appointed officials in New Mexico, including Democrats and Republicans, who participate in a separate security program put in place after the drive-by shootings at the homes of local lawmakers in Albuquerque in December 2022 and January 2023.
