FSFP Legal Director Ron Fein recently appeared on The BradCast to discuss a recent court ruling we won in our public records lawsuit seeking communications between Indiana Secretary of State Connie Lawson and the National Association for Secretaries of State (NASS) pertaining to election security. During the discussion, Fein discussed the importance of public oversight and transparency about election systems.

“The materials that have been sent to the Secretary of State of Indiana, who is a public official, in our view – virtually all of them – ought to be public…And normally anything coming in from the outside is subject to public disclosure,” said Fein.

Secretary Lawson had withheld election security related documents based on a statutory exemption for materials that pose “a reasonable likelihood of threatening public safety by exposing a vulnerability to terrorist attack.” However, an Indianapolis court recently rejected the Secretary’s efforts to justify withholding said communications between her office and NASS based on that exemption.

“If we can shine a light on the processes by which election officials end up as vehicles for misinformation about the security and reliability of our election systems, then that will provide an opening for reform so that we can move towards the most secure and reliable voting system, which is hand marked paper ballots,” said Fein.

Listen to the entire discussion here.

Learn more about National Election Defense Coalition v. Lawson.

Learn more about the fight for free and fair elections.