Pelican State News

A public interest law firm specializing in voter integrity has sued Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin, alleging failure to permit inspection of voter list maintenance records as required under the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).

In a lawsuit filed in federal court, the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) also cited the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a nonprofit that 30 states use to update their voter rolls. ERIC provides the states with reports showing the names of those no longer eligible to vote due to death or relocation, but prohibits disclosure of the reports, according to PILF President J. Christian Adams.

The PILF is a conservative legal group based in Indianapolis.

J. Christian Adams, president of the Public Interest Legal Foundation. | PILF

“ERIC is hiding documents the public has a legal right to see,” Adams said in a news release. “Transparency is essential to having free and fair elections that Louisianans can trust. ERIC is blocking transparency and violating federal law by hiding these list maintenance documents. The public’s right to these records will be vindicated in court.”

A spokesman for Ardoin, John Tobler, said they had no comment on the lawsuit, as they have yet to receive it.

A week before PILF filed the lawsuit Feb. 4, Ardoin suspended the state’s membership in ERIC. In a statement announcing the suspension, Ardoin cited concerns raised by “citizens, government watchdog organizations and media reports about potential questionable funding sources.” He also cited the fact that “partisan actors” might have access to ERIC data.

ERIC, established in 2012 by seven states, has faced criticism from both ends of the political spectrum.

In its lawsuit, PILF cites a statement by Barbara Arnwine, former executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, as saying, “ERIC should be called ERROR because it’s that erroneous and that full of flaws.”

PILF also cited a 2019 report by the progressive Brennan Center for Justice when it noted, “Wisconsin … reported that although ERIC was helpful in updating more than 25,000 registration addresses in 2017 and 2018, it also resulted in more than 1,300 voters signing ‘supplemental poll lists’ at a spring 2018 election, indicating that they had not in fact moved and were wrongly flagged.”

In August 2021, PILF emailed a letter to Ardoin’s office asking for voter maintenance records, including a list of deceased voters still on the registration lists. The lawsuit says that counsel for Ardoin repeatedly asked for extensions to comply with the request. On Jan. 24, PILF notified Ardoin that his office was in violation of the NVRA. The letter also contained a warning of litigation.

“Neither other federal laws nor federal regulations override the NVRA’s public disclosure provision as a matter of law,” the lawsuit states. “Parties cannot contract to violate federal law. To the extent the ERIC membership agreement conflicts with the NVRA’s obligation to publicly disclose voter list maintenance records, the ERIC membership agreement is void against public policy, invalid, and unenforceable.”