The state Democratic Party said Wednesday that, thanks to the intervention of Attorney General Leslie Rutledge's office, it expected to obtain documents that Secretary of State Mark Martin's office had previously refused to release.
The Democrats sought information about flawed data about felons that Martin's office had entered into the statewide voter database used by county clerks. County clerks use the data to determine which voters should be struck from rolls, but the data included felons who had regained the right to vote and others who had never been convicted of a felony.
Chris Burks, counsel for the party, said that although he expected the documents by the end of the week, even "if we receive all documents by Friday, the law was still broken and it is important that all elected officials be held accountable to following the law."
Asked if he had any comment regarding the Democrats' statement, Chris Powell, a spokesman for Martin, said, "No."
Martin and Rutledge are Republicans.
Earlier Wednesday, another spokesman for Martin said she would not respond to a reporter's questions about the office denying Democrats' request for information about voter rolls. Martin's office didn't respond to a reporter's questions for an article published Wednesday about the matter.
"Not today," said Kerry Baldwin, a spokesman for the office, said Wednesday. "We're trying to get some other work done at this point."
Baldwin said the office was busy compiling information for a Freedom of Information Act request from the American Civil Liberties Union regarding the matter.
A reporter also asked Baldwin for an interview with Martin. Martin has not publicly spoken about the problems with the voter database. Baldwin said she would check Martin's schedule. She didn't respond by the end of business hours Wednesday.
Judd Deere, a spokesman for Rutledge, said his office had advised the secretary of state's office.
"On at least one [Freedom of Information Act] request relevant to their current situation, they have sought our guidance on being responsive to that request, but in terms of the advice that we give, I'm prevented from disclosing that due to attorney-client privilege," he said. "Ultimately, the secretary of state's office, they are the custodian of the record, and so it's up to them to respond and up to them whether or not they follow our guidance and advice."
The state Democratic Party filed a Freedom of Information Act request Aug. 3 seeking correspondence between the secretary of state's office and the Arkansas Crime Information Center; documents relating to felons who have regained the right to vote; communications with county clerks; documents related to the Department of Health list of recently deceased Arkansans; internal emails; the updated list of felons provided to each county clerk and other documents.
"We do not believe we are under an obligation to disclose these records," Powell said in an email Monday to Burks. Powell's email did not state a reason for the denial.
John Tull, general counsel for the Arkansas Press Association, said Wednesday that Martin's office is not required by law to state an exemption when denying a request.
"They don't have to respond under the act itself and state the exemption, but the better course of practice -- and the practice that almost all state agencies have followed for as long as I remember -- is if they're going to deny, the agency states that they're going to deny and cites the exemption," he said. "The attorney general has offered the opinion on numerous instances that the exemption relied upon for denying a request should be provided."
In a statement late Wednesday, Vincent Insalaco, chairman of the state Democratic Party, said he would continue to fight for voters.
"Even Arkansas's Republican Attorney General can see that Republican Secretary of State Mark Martin violated the law by not immediately processing the FOIA request," he said. "The Democratic Party of Arkansas believes every eligible Arkansans should able to cast a vote."
H.L. Moody, a spokesman for the party, said Tuesday he expected parts of the request to be denied, especially those dealing with the felon database maintained by the Arkansas Crime Information Center.
However, he said other parts of the request were not exempt from the law, such as emails between the secretary of state's office and the Arkansas Crime Information Center. The center had already handed over those records, Moody said.
Tull said that if part of a request is exempt from disclosure, parts that are not exempt should be provided.
"What they have to do in that instance is provide the documents that they are required to give," he said. "They're not required to tell you that they're not complying with the [exempt] part, but they do have to provide the documents."
On Aug. 1, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette filed a request for "all correspondence between counties and the Secretary of State's office regarding the voter list updates." The newspaper received that correspondence on Aug. 3, the same day the state Democratic Party made its request.
"We're working on the ACLU request right now, which is a large amount of documents. We really can't do two at once," Baldwin said Wednesday. "There's enough staff dedicated to doing this."
That work includes redacting the email addresses of county clerks, she said.
"We have to go through each to make sure people's rights aren't infringed," she said. "We leave names, but we do not leave email addresses, especially when we're talking about clerks' addresses, because a lot of them do not always use their office email. It may be their personal email, so we err on the side of caution."
Tull said he did not know of an exemption to the Arkansas Freedom of Information Act that would allow the secretary of state's office to redact that information.
"I would be interested in seeing any authority for that," he said.
In June, the secretary of state's office notified county clerks that it had updated the statewide voter database by flagging registered voters convicted of felonies.
The data previously used was generated by Arkansas Community Correction, but when the Community Correction employee who normally processed the data died, updates lapsed in 2014.
After reading Amendment 51 to the Arkansas Constitution, Martin's office determined that it should request the information from the Arkansas Crime Information Center.
It received the complete database of people convicted of felonies -- which contained 193,549 names -- and merged the information into the statewide voter registration system in June.
There were 7,730 people in the voter database flagged as felons. Peyton Murphy, assistant director of elections in the secretary of state's office, sent a letter to clerks on July 6 stating that "there is the potential for some errors to occur" with those voters identified as felons.
The problems generally fell into two categories. Some individuals have felony convictions but have since been discharged or pardoned. Others never have had felony convictions, he said. County clerks have been left to figure out whether each of the 7,730 people is a felon and, if so, whether each had already gone through the process to restore their voting rights.
Metro on 08/11/2016