In a recent development, a federal judge has rejected an attempt by Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold to dismiss a lawsuit alleging that her office withheld data concerning deceased voters, potentially violating the law.
Colorado, along with more than two dozen other states, is a member of the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), an organization that facilitates data sharing among states to maintain accurate voter registries. ERIC regularly provides its members with reports on deceased and likely deceased voters, using authorized access to Social Security Administration data.
However, in 2021, Secretary of State Griswold’s office declined to release ERIC’s deceased voter reports to the Public Interest Legal Foundation. This foundation is known for its work in “preventing voter fraud” and made headlines due to its involvement in former President Donald Trump’s efforts to challenge the 2020 election results in Georgia.
The foundation argued that it was entitled to this information under the National Voter Registration Act, a law enacted in 1993 to facilitate voter registration through motor vehicle offices and ensure accurate voter lists. This legislation requires states to make all records related to their program and activity implementation available to maintain precise voter registries.
In response, Deputy Secretary of State Christopher P. Beall stated that Colorado receives data from multiple sources to maintain the accuracy of its voter registry and does not consider ERIC reports to be part of its activities. Consequently, they argued that they were not obligated to provide these reports to the foundation.
The foundation countered that the ERIC Deceased Reports are directly related to voter list maintenance activities and should be disclosed under the NVRA.
U.S. District Court Chief Judge Philip A. Brimmer, in his ruling on September 29, rejected Griswold’s motion to dismiss the case. He emphasized that federal law broadly mandates the disclosure of information related to list maintenance activities. Judge Brimmer noted that the foundation had sufficiently alleged that the ERIC records it sought were indeed connected to implementing a program or activity under the NVRA, which is maintaining accurate voter rolls.
The judge also addressed Griswold’s concerns about the privacy of motor vehicle records and the confidentiality of the data used by ERIC to generate its reports. Brimmer concurred with the foundation’s argument that information covered by the NVRA’s disclosure provision, but protected by other federal statutes, should be treated as exceptions rather than completely withheld. He suggested that redacting specific information could address any legitimate data disclosure prohibitions.
It’s important to note that the Public Interest Legal Foundation has filed similar suits against other states seeking data related to voter lists. In a recent settlement, a federal judge in Alaska permitted the foundation to receive deceased voter reports from ERIC with redactions.
The controversy surrounding ERIC has gained attention, with NPR reporting earlier this year that several Republican-led states withdrew from the organization amid conservative conspiracy theories. However, these claims have been criticized as ill-informed or unfounded by experts in the field.
