From Bev Harris (BlackBoxVoting.ORG): "This lawsuit illustrates a concern I have been voicing at this site and on several political and voting rights lists. My contention: When public funds are used to conduct an election, it cannot be legal for the political parties to embargo the records claiming records from the primaries (and, if applicable, the caucuses) are their private secret documents. I've been arguing this pretty vigorously for a month now. Lo and behold, here comes a lawsuit now on this very point: litigants contend that the Michigan primaries cannot be held with public funds while keeping records in a "secret" category. This will be an interesting one to watch, because due to election deadlines it won't drag out for years like most litigation does. I don't know that this suit would "kill" the presidential primaries, but if they are operating in secrecy, they need to come out in the open."

Editor's note: This year the NH legislature just passed, and the Governor signed, SB98, a law prohibiting access to the PUBLICLY OWNED voter registration database to anyone other than the two major political parties. Smells like a lawsuit to me.

SOURCE: City Pulse

Suit would kill prexy primaries , Written by Kyle Melinn
Wednesday, 24 October 2007

Michigan must cancel its scheduled Jan. 15 presidential primary because the state law creating the public election allows Republican and Democratic officials to keep to themselves which party’s ballot a voter used, according to a lawsuit slated to be filed today.

The lawsuit asks the Ingham County Circuit Court to put an emergency injunction on the “unconstitutional” Jan. 15 election to prevent the Michigan Republican and Democratic parties from being the sole beneficiaries of information collected through a publicly paid election.

Mark Grebner of Practical Political Consultants is joining six other plaintiffs, including Lansing-based City Pulse publisher Berl Schwartz, in the lawsuit over what they are referring to as “secret records.”

“The Act creates a legal duopoly — a monopoly held by two institutions, the Michigan Democratic Party and the Michigan Republican Party — and ensures the continuation of the duopoly by forbidding them from transferring full ownership to any other entity,” the complaint reads.

In August, the Legislature and governor set a state-paid presidential primary election for Jan. 15, 2008, in which all Michigan voters could go to the polls to pick their preferred primary candidate. However, to keep secret whether a voter opted to participate in the Republican or Democratic primary, lawmakers limited who could see this recorded information to the individual state parties.

The state parties can use the “secret” record for just about any activity the political party is allowed to conduct.

The law also requires the secretary of state to destroy these records after 22 months and that anyone who “uses” a “secret” record — a journalist, academic or historian, for example — could be hit with a 93-day sentence and a $1,000 misdemeanor.

Officials insist this concession needed to be made in order for the law to comply with national Democratic Party rules. But in doing so, Grebner and other plaintiffs say the state violated the Freedom of Information Act, the Michigan Uniform Trade Secrets Act and at least three parts of the state Constitution.

Also, Grebner noted the irony of the Michigan Republican and Democratic parties’ claiming the release of the data would violate party rules when both parties are being sanctioned for violating party rules by holding the primary election earlier than Feb. 5.

Grebner claims no other political party has ever been given “private custody” of election records in this state or any other.

If the court allows the election to proceed, Grebner attorney Randolph Bodwin is asking the court to order the secretary of state to release the voting data through the Freedom of Information Act or keep all of the data locked away until the case is completely litigated.

Another option is put a fair market price on the information and make it available to anybody for purchase.

By trade, Grebner puts together voter lists that political candidates, among others, pay for to find out voter history information. One could argue the new state law would cut into his business, but Grebner has argued the case is about the state shielding from the public information that it is entitled to.

The lawsuit points out that the state law allows the Republican and Democratic parties to keep information that would be worth millions of dollars in the private market.
Party officials declined comment.