A Leon County Circuit Court judge ordered Florida elections officials to open to public scrutiny a list of names to be purged from voter rolls. In so doing, Judge Nikki Ann Clark ruled as unconstitutional a state law restricting access to the records.



The decision by the Tallahassee circuit judge strongly reasserted that it is state policy for government records to be open for personal inspection by any person. The judge also said the state failed to justify the limits it had put on people’s ability to copy the records in question.



The ruling brought an immediate response from U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson, who last month joined a lawsuit filed by Cable News Network demanding that Florida make public the state list of names of possible felons who are to be deleted from voter rolls.



“I look at Judge Clark’s ruling as reinforcing a constitutional principle that people have a right to know what their state government is up to,” Nelson said in a prepared statement issued after the ruling. “The decision also safeguards the integrity of our elections process.”



The CNN lawsuit, which Nelson joined June 4, contended a new Florida law wrongly let only certain people and groups, such as political parties and candidates, get copies of various voter lists. The lawsuit was prompted by state officials denying CNN full access to the list of names to be removed from Florida voter rolls.



The list is of increasing interest to the public, because in the 2000 election many potential voters around the state said they were prevented from voting because their names were incorrectly on such a list. It was in that election that George W. Bush became president by winning Florida by just 537 votes.



For more information contact: Dan McLaughlin; or Bryan Gulley at (202) 224-1679 or (202) 309-1985.