2023 New Mexico Statutes › Chapter 1 - Elections › Article 4 - Registration of Electors › Section 1-4-5.6 - Unlawful use or disposition of voter data, mailing labels or special voter lists; penalties.

A. Unlawful use of voter data, mailing labels or special voter lists consists of:
(1) the knowing and willful selling, loaning, providing access to or otherwise surrendering of voter data, mailing labels or special voter lists by a person for purposes prohibited by the Election Code; or
(2) causing voter data, mailing labels or special voter lists or any part of the voter data, mailing label or special voter lists that identifies, or that could be used to identify, a specific voter or the voter's name, mailing or residence address to be made publicly available on the internet or through other means.
B. Any person, organization or corporation or agent, officer, representative or employee thereof who commits unlawful use of voter data, mailing labels or special voter lists is guilty of a fourth degree felony and upon conviction shall be fined one hundred dollars ($100) for each line of voter information that was unlawfully used.
C. Each unlawful use of voter data, mailing labels or special voter lists constitutes a separate offense.
History:
1953 Comp., § 3-5-30, enacted by Laws 1975, ch. 255, § 79; 2001, ch. 146, § 9; 2005, ch. 270, § 36; 1978 Comp., § 1-5-25 recompiled as § 1-4-5.6 by Laws 2011, ch. 137, § 109; 2023, ch. 84, § 3.
ANNOTATIONS
Recompilations.
— Laws 2011, ch. 137, § 109 recompiled former 1-5-25 NMSA 1978 as 1-4-5.6 NMSA 1978 effective July 1, 2011.
The 2023 amendment,
effective July 1, 2023, revised the elements of the crime of unlawful use of voter data, mailing labels or special voter lists; and in Subsection A, Paragraph A(1), after "willful", deleted "use of such information for purposes prohibited by the Voter Records System Act" and added "selling, loaning, providing access to or otherwise surrendering of voter data, mailing labels or special voter lists by a person for purposes prohibited by the Election Code; or", and added a new Paragraph A(2).
Election Code does not prohibit the publication of voter data online.
— Where plaintiff, a voting advocacy organization which sought to publish voter data on its website, brought a federal civil action against the New Mexico Attorney General and the New Mexico Secretary of State, alleging that the secretary of state's interpretations of statutory restrictions on the use of voter data violated the First and Fifth Amendments to the United States Constitution, and where plaintiff moved for a preliminary injunction seeking to enjoin the attorney general and the secretary of state from prohibiting plaintiff from disseminating or using New Mexico voter information for purposes related to election integrity, and from prosecuting plaintiff for unlawful use of voter data, the court held that plaintiff was entitled to a preliminary injunction, because plaintiff's election-related work in analyzing and evaluating the secretary of state's work related to the operation of a state government, and is, therefore, a "governmental purpose" as defined in 1-4-5.5 NMSA 1978, and plaintiff's crowd-sourcing work, which encouraged users to check their own and others' voter data and inform the secretary of state of any errors they find also falls within that section's broad definition of "governmental purposes". New Mexico's Election Code does not prohibit plaintiff, or any organization, from posting voter data online, so long as the organization does not publish voters' birth information or any portion of a voter's social security number.
Voter Reference Found., LLC v. Balderas
, ___ F. Supp.3d ___ (10th Cir. 2022).