Judicial Watch announced today that a federal court ordered the State of Maryland to produce the voter list for Montgomery County that includes the registered voters’ date of birth. This court ruling is the latest in a series of victories for Judicial Watch in its lawsuit filed July 18, 2017, against Montgomery County and the Maryland State Boards of Elections under the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA).
Judicial Watch filed suit for the Maryland voter list data after uncovering that there were more registered voters in Montgomery County than citizens over the age of 18 who could legally register (Judicial Watch vs. Linda H. Lamone, et al. (No. 1:17-cv-02006)).
Ruling in Judicial Watch’s favor, Judge Hollander said:
Judicial Watch need not demonstrate its need for birth date information in order to facilitate its effort to ensure that the voter rolls are properly maintained. Nevertheless, it has put forward reasonable justifications for requiring birth date information, including using birth dates to find duplicate registrations and searching for voters who remain on the rolls despite “improbable” age.
In order to avoid turning over the dates of birth for Maryland voters, the Maryland Administrator of Elections, Linda Lamone, directed her staff to remove date of birth as a field on the voter registration application. Judge Hollander ruled that Lamone could not do this, saying:
Because full voter birth dates appear on completed voter registration applications, the Administrator may not bypass the Act by unilaterally revising the Application.
In August 2019, Judge Hollander ruled in Judicial Watch’s favor in the same case, ordering the State of Maryland to produce voter list data for Montgomery County. She noted then:
Organizations such as Judicial Watch have the resources and expertise that few individuals can marshal. By excluding these organizations from access to voter registration lists, the State law undermines Section 8(i)’s efficacy. Accordingly, [Maryland election law] is an obstacle to the accomplishment of the NVRA’s purposes. It follows that the State law is preempted in so far as it allows only Maryland registered voters to access voter registration lists.
The judge at the time also asked both Judicial Watch and Maryland to brief the issue of access to birth dates “more fully,” and reserved her ruling on that point. This recent ruling resolves the last remaining issue in the case, allowing Judicial Watch access to full voter registration files for Montgomery County registrants.
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