The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) is suing Wisconsin’s chief election official, Meagan Wolfe, to reduce the $12,500 price for a digital copy of the state voter roll and to provide the year of birth of registrants on purchased data. PILF believes that restricting public access to Wisconsin’s voter roll is too expensive and impedes grassroots watchdog groups from monitoring the accuracy of the state’s voter roll. A report from the Federal Election Assistance Commission found that a significant number of address confirmation notices were returned as undeliverable in Wisconsin.
PILF uses state election roll data to ensure that state and local election officials are keeping the rolls current and accurate, as required by law. Despite acknowledging the importance of year of birth information in confirming duplicate names and eliminating ineligible registrations, the Wisconsin Election Commission (WEC) has refused to provide this information to PILF, allegedly violating the National Voting Rights Act of 1993 (NVRA).
The NVRA mandates that states make all records concerning voter list maintenance activities available for public inspection. WEC claims an exemption from the NVRA due to having same-day voter registration before the statutory cut-off date of August 1, 1994. However, PILF argues that federal law should supersede state law and is seeking to compel WEC to provide the year of birth data and a digital copy of the state voter roll at a reasonable cost.
PILF contends that Wisconsin’s NVRA exemption is invalid with respect to the law’s public disclosure provision and cites the principle of equal state sovereignty to support their argument. They are asking the Federal District Court to order Meagan Wolfe to produce the Official Registration List to PILF in electronic format without any unlawful costs. PILF President J. Christian Adams emphasized the importance of transparency in voter list maintenance activities and believes that all states should be subject to the NVRA’s transparency requirements. Wolfe is depending on as a rationale for her refusal.
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