(The Center Square) – Honest Elections Project filed an amicus brief on behalf of the petitioner inPublic Interest Legal Foundation v. Nago, urging the U.S. Supreme Court to decide the case, with an attorney arguing that voter rolls being available for public view are vital to election integrity.
Executive director of Honest Elections Project Jason Snead told The Center Square that “the Ninth Circuit absurdly ruled that voter rolls are not a record related to list maintenance, but the result of list maintenance activity, and therefore can be kept secret.”
“That ruling conflicts with other circuits, which is why the Supreme Court should step in to make it clear that state voter registration records are subject to public examination,” Snead said.
“Under the [National Voter Registration Act], records related to list maintenance are supposed to be available for inspection so the public can know whether states are fulfilling their legal duty to keep accurate voter rolls,” Snead said.
Public Interest Legal Foundation v. Nagois a lawsuit that was “filed under Section 8 of the National Voter Registration Act” in order to “to compel the release of the statewide voter roll and history records held by the Hawaii Office of Elections,”according to the petitioner, Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF).
PILF President and General Counsel J. Christian Adams told The Center Square in a statement: “Congress said the public is entitled to all records concerning voter list maintenance.
“‘All’ means ‘all,’” Adams said. “The statewide voter file is exactly what Congress requires be made public.”
Respondent Scott Nago, chief eection officer for the state of Hawaii, has not yet responded to The Center Square’s request for comment.
Counsel of record as well as partner at Holtzman Vogel law firm Jason Torchinsky similarly told The Center Square that “in PILF v. Nago, the Ninth Circuit held that Hawaii can hide its statewide voter registration list from public view,” contrary to what the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) requires.
“In doing so, the Ninth Circuit ignored the NVRA’s transparency-enhancing language beyond recognition and relied on a purported conflict with another federal statute, the Help America Vote Act [HAVA], that does not exist,” Torchinsky said.
Torchinsky said “the Honest Elections Project’s amicus brief argues that the Ninth Circuit’s decision conflicts with the NVRA’s text and structure and that the NVRA and HAVA can be read in harmony.”
“It urges the Supreme Court to take the case to reaffirm what the NVRA makes clear: the public has a right to inspect a State’s official statewide voter registration list – not just the paperwork behind it,” Torchinsky said.
“Meaningful oversight of election integrity is impossible without it,” Torchinsky warned.
Honest Elections Project urged in itsamicus briefthat the Supreme Court “grant the petition for a writ of certiorari.”
The brief argues that the Ninth Circuit’s ruling concerning voter rolls “conflicts with” the National Voter Registration Act’s (NVRA) “text and structure” and is therefore wrong, especially as NVRA’ structure and principles “support Petitioner’s reading.”
The amicus brief also argues that the Ninth Circuit “erroneously found a conflict between the NVRA and HAVA where none exists.”
“The Court should grant certiorari to correct this error and ensure that the NVRA and HAVA are construed, as Congress intended them to be, as complementary enactments,” the brief said.
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