Chapel Hill Review

An election integrity group, Voter Reference Foundation (VRF), is suing New Mexico officials to ensure publication of the state's voter rolls.

VRF runs the nationwide voter transparency database, VoteRef.com, which added the state of North Carolina in October of 2021.

The lawsuit was filed March 28, according to Just the News. In it, VRP cites a violation of the First Amendment and is asking the U.S. District Court in Albuquerque to assert the organization's right to publish the voter rolls for taxpayers to view.

"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 (which started VRF), told Just the News. "The public has a right to see them, and if they try to block us, we will assert that right in court."

The lawsuit was filed after Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver (D-NM) falsely claimed that VRF illegally published New Mexico's voter rolls. The complaint asserts that Oliver has a history of refusing to release public voting records, previously doing so 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 told Just the News. "Confidence in American elections is at a low ebb, and one reason is a lack of transparency.”

VoteRef.com shows that the organization has added North Carolina's voter rolls to its database. North Carolina is one of 20 states, plus the District of Columbia, with searchable voter rolls on its website.