To see, or not to see, that was the question for the federal judge. And he got it right, despite deep opposition from the office that administers New Mexico’s elections.

In a democratic republic, we all get to see who is on the voter rolls. It’s not a privilege of the elite and powerful, or a lifestyle of the rich and famous. It’s public record, just like property tax records, and that’s why it’s so disappointing our secretary of state spent years standing in the way of voter registration transparency.

For time immemorial, local political operatives, party bosses and candidates themselves have ventured to their county clerk offices to obtain voter registration lists.

Some want the names and addresses of every registered voter in the county or of several precincts. Some want the names and addresses of every registered voter under 40 years old. Some want the names and addresses of every registered voter who is under 40 years old and who has voted in the last two or three Democratic or Republican primaries. Some want the names and addresses of everyone who in the last two years has registered to vote in New Mexico for the first time.

And they’ve gotten it, without a court order, because voter registration rolls are public record. All that has been required has been a written request and a signed affidavit that the information would only be used for government/election purposes.

In the old days, candidates and political parties purchased reams of sticky-backed labels with the names and addresses of voters to affix onto campaign mailers. Costs were minimal, usually limited to the costs of the paper and the labels and the ink. Technology has made that unnecessary. Today, a thumb drive or email attachment will do.

Technology has also made the online publication of voter rolls possible. But the Old Guard doesn’t like the Average Joe having access to the keys to the kingdom. Some feel only the elite and powerful should have access to such sensitive information.

And late last month they got busted.

U.S. District Judge James O. Browning of Albuquerque ruled on Aug. 30 that the New Mexico Secretary of State’s Office unconstitutionally discriminated against a nonprofit group by withholding publicly available voter data. Browning further- more ruled that Democratic Secretary of State Maggie Toulouse Oliver acted with “viewpoint discriminatory purpose” by withholding the voter data.

As Gomer Pyle might say, “Shame, shame, shame.”

New Mexico’s top election official has been battling with the Voter Reference Foundation for years, at untold legal costs, while championing her office as a model of transparency.

Now, Toulouse Oliver has a stinging federal ruling saying she unconstitutionally discriminated against a group based on its ideology and her own.

Browning noted New Mexico law doesn’t prohibit any organization from posting voter data online. That was a critical element in the federal lawsuit against the secretary of state. We’re all entitled to see voter data online, just as we are if we venture to our local county clerk’s office.

We get that having your name and address publicly available can be disconcerting for some. But exercising the right to vote comes with some civic duties and downsides, like an increased likelihood of being called for jury duty, or a mailbox full of campaign mailers many of us are about to be besieged with. Getting called for jury duty can be very inconvenient and political mail can get annoying, but we get over it. And the Voter Reference Foundation has implemented safeguards on its online database such as a “safe haven” exception for victims of domestic violence.

Judge Browning properly balanced that with the right of ordinary citizens to monitor voter registration rolls and point out anomalies. His ruling was a huge win for transparency in New Mexico, and the big- gest setback of Toulouse Oliver’s political career since she was defeated by Republican Dianna Duran in 2014.

Toulouse Oliver has got Donald Trump living rent-free in her mind and has lost her objectivity. When Trump was president, she said she would not release any voter information to the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity in 2017 “unless and until I am convinced the information will not be used for nefarious or unlawful purposes, and only if I am provided a clear plan for how it will be secured.”

It wasn’t her data to withhold. It was all of our data, and she still doesn’t get that, even though she’ll end up as the longest serving secretary of state in New Mexico history because her two latest four-year terms were preceded by finishing the last two years of Duran’s term. Toulouse Oliver was even the Bernalillo County clerk before that. She should have known better.

The state, of course, plans to appeal Judge Browning’s decision, and run up more legal costs in the pursuit of voter info suppression. It’s either that or concede a statewide elected officer unconstitutionally discriminated against a group based on its political viewpoints.

Nonetheless, Toulouse Oliver is clearly on the wrong side of history and the Constitution. She and her staff contended that disseminating voter data online would violate state election law and jeopardize “voter privacy as well as the fact that the data could be misread and also manipulated.”

But Browning correctly wasn’t buying the “spread of misinformation” argument.

The defendent’s true rational for withholding the data is the Defendants’ belief that Voter Reference disseminates ‘misinformation’ via its website, VoteRef. com,” the judge’s 77-page ruling stated. The secretary of state “subjected Voter Reference to individual treatment on the basis of the Defendants’ animus towards Voter Reference’s viewpoint — specifically, the fear that giving the data to Voter Reference may reveal that the Secretary of State is lax about maintaining the state’s voter data.”

Browning noted Toulouse Oliver’s office fielded requests for voter data from Democratic, Republican and Libertarian parties in 2021 and 2022, and from other groups in early 2021. But her office objected when the Voter Reference Foundation published voter data online it had received from a group named Local Labs.

Toulouse Oliver even sent a criminal referral — which thankfully has no legal bearing —to the state attorney general for investigation and prosecution of personnel of Local Labs and VRF after her office learned of the VRF’s initial posting of New Mexico voter data in December 2021.

Browning issued a permanent injunc- tion barring Toulouse Oliver “from engaging in any future viewpoint discrimination” against Voter Reference Foundation, and awarded the nonprofit fees and costs incurred in the lawsuit first filed in 2022.

“This withholding is without precedent — no other requester of New Mexico voter data has been denied access to voter data after submitting the properly completed affidavits,” the judge wrote. “Once the government makes information avail- able to some, it cannot condition the receipt of the voluntarily disclosed government information on a requester’s viewpoint.”

All of this could have been avoided if Toulouse Oliver had performed the duties of her job without political bias, or “viewpoint discriminatory purpose,” as the federal judge put it. Now, taxpayers will have to pick up the tab.

With New Mexico in its rear-view window, Voter Reference Foundation can now focus on other states to complete its mission of providing free voter registration information for all 50 states at VoteRef. com. Check out the free site, look up the party affiliation of a school board member or the author of a editor to the editor, see if a co-worker or a neighbor who can’t stop talking presidential politics is even registered to vote.

You’ve always had that right. Now it’s easily accessible, despite our top election official.

“Our system of government is based upon citizen participation,” states the home page of VoteRef.com. “We believe the people, in effect, own this data and have a legal right to see it in an understandable and transparent form. Let freedom ring.”

Let it ring, indeed.

This editorial first appeared in the Albuquerque Journal. It was written by members of the editorial board.