Fed. Judge Slams New Mexico Officials For Discriminating Against Election Watchdog

Via Headline USA,

A federal judge said far-left New Mexico election regulators and prosecutors had discriminated against a nonprofit group in refusing access to voter registration rolls.

Maggie Toulouse Oliver / PHOTO: AP

Albuquerque-based U.S. District Court Judge James Browning ruled that state election regulators engaged in viewpoint-based discrimination and free speech violations in denying the Voter Reference Foundation access to voter data and by referring the matter to state prosecutors.

Browning previously ruled that New Mexico authorities violated public disclosure provisions of the National Voter Registration Act by refusing to provide voter rolls to the same foundation, overriding a provision of a state law that restricts the use of voter registration data.

The Friday ruling barred the state from refusing to turn over voter data, bolstering the VRF’s efforts to expand a free database of registered voters in order to assist election-integrity watchdogs in rooting out potential irregularities or fraud.

State prosecutors planned to appeal the court ruling, said Lauren Rodriguez, a spokesperson for the New Mexico Department of Justice.

Democrats inexplicably have fought tooth and nail against all efforts by activists and lawmakers to ensure the sanctity of the ballot, despite the presence of an estimated 10 to 15 million new illegal immigrants courtesy of the Biden–Harris open border policies. Many are automatically added to voter rolls when applying for drivers licenses and other government services unless they pro-actively affirm that they are ineligible to vote.

The VoteRef.com website recently restored New Mexico listings to its searchable database of registered voters—including street addresses, party affiliations and whether voters participated in recent elections.

Democrats have claimed that by granting conservative watchdog groups access to state voter rolls, the lists could find their way into the hands of malicious actors and voters could be disenfranchised through intimidation, possibly by canceling their registrations to avoid public disclosure of their home addresses and party affiliation.

There is no evidence that greater transparency regarding voter registration has resulted in intimidation, and in many states Democrats have registered as Republicans in order to cast votes against GOP nominee Donald Trump.

The foundation’s VoteRef.com site doesn’t list whom people voted for. It preserves confidentiality under a program that shields victims of domestic violence or stalking.

Addresses also remain confidential for more than 100 publicly elected or appointed officials in New Mexico, including Democrats and Republicans, enrolled in a separate safety program enacted in the aftermath of drive-by shootings on the homes of local lawmakers in Albuquerque in December 2022 and January 2023.

The data may, however, assist election-canvassers in tracking the locations of invalid mail-in ballots, particularly in swing states where a narrow margin could impact the outcome.

The VoteRef.com database includes voter information spanning more than 32 states and the District of Columbia. It is run by Gina Swoboda, chair of the Arizona Republican Party and organizer of former President Donald Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign in Arizona.

An audit of Arizona’s 2020 election, commissioned by the state Senate, revealed that substantially more mail-in ballots had been returned in Maricopa County than were documented as having been sent out.

The total number of irregularities identified by the Cyber Ninjas forensic auditing team outstripped the 10,457-vote margin by which state officials claimed Democrat Joe Biden had won the election in Arizona.

Adapted from reporting by the Associated Press