On December 4, a non-partisan group called The Know Campaign filed a lawsuit in Virginia state court, challenging a law that says certain voter registration data is private, and can only be distributed to candidates, political parties, and PACs. See this story. The case is The KnowCampaign v Rodrigues, city of Richmond circuit court, cl-09-005389-00.
The Know Campaign’s goal is to send letters to voters shortly before elections, motivating them to vote. The Know Campaign does this by telling voters which voters in their neighborhood voted in the previous election. The Know Campaign reasons that if people know that their neighbors will be learning (via such letters) who has voted, that people will be more motivated to vote, so as to avoid being embarrassed by such letters in the future. The Know Campaign carried out this type of activity in another state, and later research seemed to show the letter did cause higher voter turnout. The type of voter registration records at issue in this lawsuit is not only the list of registered voters, but the data that tells which voters voted.
In 1996, a federal court in Hawaii ruled in Donrey Media Group v Ikeda that if the government gives a list of the registered voters to parties and candidates, it must also give it on request to newspapers.
Wasn’t there a similar lawsuit in Michigan last year?
It seems to me that The Know Campaign will win, since this data is public record.
Speaking of Virginia, I keep wondering when a suit will be brought against the Incumbent Protection Act, which lets incumbents pick their method of renomination (VA provides several nominating options besides primaries).
There have been several decisions that say if the government gives the list of voters to the major parties, it must give it to other parties as well. Such decisions have come down in Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, Indiana, and Arizona.
I don’t want my neighbors getting mail telling them if I voted. This is an invation of privacy.
Also, I don’t see the public good being served by having unmotivated people vote just to please their neighbors. We don’t like our children smoking because of peer presure, I don’t see why we like peer presure to get people to vote.
GPMI was the lead plaintiff in the Michigan case, which is covered at the OSU Moritz Law Library’s Website:
http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/litigation/GreenPartyv.MichiganSecretaryofState.php
BAN has a report here, among others:
http://www.ballot-access.org/2008/03/26/michigan-minor-parties-win-federal-lawsuit-on-access-to-voter-list/
I wanted to add your feed to my sidebar in Vista, but it gives me an error. Any idea what I am doing wrong?