(The Epoch Times)
A good-government group is suing Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold in federal court for refusing to allow the inspection of voter list maintenance records as required by federal law.
Griswold, a Democrat, is refusing to allow the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) access to voter list maintenance documents, including data that Colorado receives from the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC).
Griswold says her agency’s contract with ERIC prohibits the release of the data that ERIC provides to member states. ERIC, a nonprofit that describes its mission as “assisting states to improve the accuracy of America’s voter rolls and increase access to voter registration for all eligible citizens,” was created in 2012 with assistance from The Pew Charitable Trusts, a left-wing philanthropy.
Griswold also claims Colorado can’t hand over the records because of the federal Driver’s Privacy Protection Act and other laws governing the Social Security death record database. Colorado’s membership agreement with ERIC, she claims, also prohibits member states from disclosing records that are public documents under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) of 1993.
Colorado, 30 states, and the District of Columbia outsource the maintenance of their voter rolls to ERIC. ERIC regularly provides the Colorado Secretary of State’s office with reports showing which registered voters are no longer eligible because they have died or relocated. The NVRA provides that all records used to add or remove voters are public records, yet Griswold denied a group’s request to inspect the reports ERIC provides to the state.
“Colorado is hiding voter list maintenance documents the public is legally entitled to,” said PILF President J. Christian Adams in a statement.
“Elections must be free and transparent for Americans to trust their results. Secretary Griswold and ERIC are blocking transparency and violating federal law,” said Adams, a former U.S. Justice Department civil rights attorney.
ERIC also has critics on the political left, as The Epoch Times previously reported.
Liberal journalist Greg Palast has likened ERIC to Jim Crow, a set of post-Civil War state and local statutes that legalized racial segregation. Barbara Arnwine, former executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, reportedly said, “ERIC should be called ERROR because it’s that erroneous and that full of flaws.”
The lawsuit, PILF v. Griswold, was filed on Dec. 16 with the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado. Griswold is being sued in her official capacity.
On Aug. 20, PILF n
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