Secretary of State Al Schmidt responds to questions from Senator Vincent Hughes, D-Philadelphia, about the administration of Donald Trump cutting back on federal resources aimed at blocking foreign interference in elections.
PA Senate
Federal judge sides with Pa. over “election integrity” group on use of public voter registration data
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Jordan Wilkie/WITF
PA Senate
Secretary of State Al Schmidt responds to questions from Senator Vincent Hughes, D-Philadelphia, about the administration of Donald Trump cutting back on federal resources aimed at blocking foreign interference in elections.
A federal judge is siding with Pennsylvania over an out-of-state advocacy group in a lawsuit about voter data. The group, the Voter Reference Foundation, sued over Pennsylvania’s ban on publishing voter data online.
The foundation, a self-described voter participation and election integrity nonprofit, already publishes the data for 36 other states. In their lawsuit, Voter Reference Foundation argued Pennsylvania’s ban is a violation of the First Amendment and federal laws requiring public access to voter registration data.
District court judge Joseph Saporito Jr. disagreed in an order released Thursday, writing the ban does not restrict access to information, it only restricts how it can be shared.
“The Internet Sharing Ban does not restrict any party’s access to data to which they are entitled,” he wrote, adding later that “it only prevents the full voter export list from being published on the Internet.”
Saporito also ruled the First Amendment claim was meritless.
The ruling runs counter to decisions by the 1st and 10th federal circuit courts. Lawyers for the Voter Reference Foundation did not respond for this story, but the different rulings by different courts set up a possible appeal of this decision to the 3rd Circuit, which includes Pennsylvania’s federal courts.
Pennsylvania’s Secretary of State Al Schmidt praised the ruling and defended his agency’s rule.
“The Department’s common-sense prohibition on disclosing the private information of Pennsylvania voters from disclosure on the internet is in line with our dedication to protect the privacy of our voters,” Schmidt said.
For $20, anybody can access Pennsylvania’s basic voter data, including name, date of birth, address, and often a phone number. Publishing that information online could result in a misdemeanor carrying a $6,000 fine or up to three years imprisonment due to the Department of State’s Internet Sharing Ban for voter data.
The Voter Reference Foundation first requested the state’s voter data in 2022 and was rejected because the foundation would not agree not to publish it. The group works with lawmakers and members of the public who seek to find evidence of fraud. Findings based on their data are frequently dismissed due to the bad quality of their data, which is in part a consequence of voter registration data being outdated almost the moment it is provided. People register, move, die, or otherwise change their registration every day.
The group was working with Republican state Reps. Jamie Flick, of Lycoming County, and Eric Nelson, of Westmoreland County, in 2024 and 2025 in an attempt to find people who voted in multiple states. To-date, the lawmakers have not publicly shared any findings. WITF’s reporting last year showed their method for identifying double voters would likely create inaccurate results.
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