Voter Reference Foundation v. Schmidt

Question Presented

Does the First Amendment prevent a state from requiring people who obtain its voter registration lists to agree not to post voters’ personal information on the internet?

Background

To register to vote, Americans must hand over personal information to the government, including their name, home address, date of birth, and party affiliation. Federal law requires states to keep this information in centralized voter registration databases and to make certain records about their voter list maintenance available for public inspection so the public can check that the rolls are accurate. This means states have to balance two important values when determining how they maintain databases of voters’ personal information: protecting the privacy of people who have entrusted their data with the government, and ensuring transparency to facilitate free and fair elections.

Many states balance transparency and privacy by making voter lists available with conditions attached. For example, some states require that requesters only use the lists for election, political, or law enforcement purposes. Otherwise, they may be barred from selling the data or posting it online.

These conditions are part of a long American tradition of access, use, and transfer limits on government records. For decades, data protection regimes have relied on these tools, including the Privacy Act, the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act, and the use restrictions on campaign donor data in the Federal Election Campaign Act, among others. Courts have repeatedly upheld these restrictions against First Amendment challenges.

Voter privacy is under growing pressure. Groups have posted entire state voter files online, and harassers have used voter data to find and dox people. Some individuals have gone door to door accusing voters of fraud while impersonating election officials. Survivors of domestic violence have described having to choose between their safety and their right to vote. And since May 2025, the Department of Justice has sought unredacted voter rolls from nearly every state. Courts have repeatedly rejected those demands, and some have pointed to evidence that the federal government intended to build a national voter database for immigration enforcement.

Organizations seeking to publish voter data have challenged state privacy protections in court across the country. They often argue that the protections are preempted by the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA), that they violate the First Amendment, or both. EPIC previously filed an amicus brief in PILF v. Bellows in the First Circuit, defending Maine’s voter privacy protections.

The Case

Pennsylvania makes several voter lists available to the public, including a Full Voter Export List. That list includes each voter’s name, address, date of birth, party affiliation, and voting history. Anyone requesting the lists must affirm that they will not publish them on the internet. That rule is known as the Internet Sharing Ban.

Voter Reference Foundation (VRF) runs a website where it posts voter data from dozens of states. VRF requested updated voter lists under the NVRA’s public disclosure provision but refused to agree to the Internet Sharing Ban, so the Secretary denied its requests. VRF sued, claiming the Ban is preempted by the NVRA and violates the First Amendment.

In April 2026, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania ruled for the Secretary on every claim. It held that VRF lacked standing to challenge the denial of its records requests, applying the Third Circuit’s recent decision in PILF v. Secretary of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The court agreed that the voter list is a record covered by the NVRA but held that the Internet Sharing Ban does not conflict with the statute. On the First Amendment claims, it held that the Ban is best understood as a limit on access to information in the government’s control, not a restriction on speech, and so it does not implicate the First Amendment at all. VRF appealed.

EPIC’s Brief

EPIC filed an amicus brief in support of the Secretary. The brief urges the Third Circuit to reject VRF’s attempt to recast a routine privacy protection as government censorship.

First, EPIC explained that the Internet Sharing Ban is an ordinary access, use, and transfer restriction. Rules of this kind have been central to American data protection since the 1973 HEW report that introduced the Fair Information Practices. Similar limits appear in the Privacy Act, FECA, the DPPA, FOIA, CIPSEA, the tax code, and many state open records laws, and courts have upheld several of them against First Amendment challenges. A ruling that the Internet Sharing Ban violates the First Amendment could threaten this broader framework.

Second, EPIC argued that privacy and the First Amendment work together to protect the right to vote. Registering to vote and affiliating with a party are themselves forms of political expression. Voters who fear their information will be misused may choose not to register at all. In a closed-primary state like Pennsylvania, publishing party affiliation and voting history online would effectively reveal how most people vote. That exposure would open the door to employer coercion, harassment, and intimidation, the same abuses the secret ballot was designed to prevent.

Third, EPIC explained that the Ban protects voter privacy without restricting protected speech. The Ban is a viewpoint-neutral condition on access to information the government controls, and the First Amendment does not guarantee unfettered access to government information. VRF remains free to analyze the voter list, publish its findings, and advocate for changes to Pennsylvania’s list maintenance. It simply cannot post nearly 7 million Pennsylvanians’ personal information online for anyone to scrape and misuse. That limit is not a restriction on protected speech.

Litigation Documents

District Court’s Order