Secretary of State William M. Gardner and Attorney General Gordon J. MacDonald announce that the plaintiffs will dismiss the case challenging the Secretary of State's ability to release certain public voter information.

Earlier today, Secretary Gardner had filed pleadings opposing the plaintiffs' lawsuit. In them, he had argued to the Court that RSA 91-A, the State's right-to know law, requires release of marked voter checklists maintained at the State Archives. The plaintiffs' dismissal concedes that is correct. Secretary Gardner intends to proceed as set forth in the attached letter to Attorney General MacDonald.

The Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity ("Commission") made such requests for publicly available voter registration information on June 28, 2017 and on July 26, 2017. Secretary Gardner is specifically responding to the July 26, 2017 request.

The information that Secretary Gardner is releasing to the Commission includes public information such as voters' names, addresses, party affiliations, whether they voted and whether they voted by absentee ballots. All of this information is public under RSA 659:102 and RSA 654:31-a and is required by the right-to-know law to be released.

Secretary Gardner stated that, "Our Office strives to foster a sense of integrity and transparency in the elections process and to help increase voter confidence which in turn increases voter turnout. For the ACLU to argue, without justification, that this Office would seek to harm the voting public by disclosing historic voter information only served to unnecessarily undermine voter confidence and frustrate the positive and trustworthy impression our Office tries to give the voters of New Hampshire. Not only is the information at issue required to be disclosed upon request but such disclosure is intended to provide voters with a way to evaluate the elections process in which they are engaged, to help them develop and maintain a positive perspective on that process and pride in their involvement in the electoral process."

Letter from William Gardner