Kansas appeals court says secretary of state violated open records law by altering computer system – Kansas Reflector

TOPEKA — Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab violated state open data legislation when he ordered a software program vendor to disable the flexibility to supply a public document, the Kansas Courtroom of Appeals dominated on Friday.

The ruling is the newest victory for Davis Hammet, a voting rights advocate, in his three-year authorized combat with Schwab over entry to provisional poll knowledge beneath the Kansas Open Data Act.

“By turning off the report functionality, the secretary denied affordable public entry to that public document and the knowledge inside it,” Justice Stephen Hill wrote within the appeals courtroom resolution. “That motion — selecting to hide moderately than reveal public data — violates KORA.”

Every election cycle, Kansans solid tens of 1000’s of provisional ballots, a lot of that are discarded. A number of the points may be corrected. A voter might have uncared for to replace their registration after shifting, or an election official might query the validity of a signature on a mail-in poll.

Hammet, the president of Loud Gentle, which works to teach and interact younger adults and underrepresented communities on elections in Kansas, has filed a sequence of requests for provisional poll stories beneath the Kansas Open Data Act. The objective is to assist voters have their ballots may be counted, and to analysis the difficulty to higher advise public officers about insurance policies that affect voters.

In an earlier lawsuit, Shawnee County District Choose Teresa Watson ordered Schwab to show the knowledge over to Hammet. Schwab responded by criticizing the courtroom and asking ES&S, the software program vendor for the state’s election system, to disable the reporting function.

Hammet, who’s represented by the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas, responded by submitting a second lawsuit. This time, Watson dominated that KORA doesn’t require public companies to create a software program performance.

Hill rejected Watson’s “strained evaluation,” which “successfully seals laptop data.”

“That ruling would enable all laptop data of public data to turn out to be inaccessible via the easy manipulation of what the pc system is requested to do,” Hill wrote.

KORA declares the state coverage is that public data be open for inspection by any individual and that the coverage “shall be liberally construed and utilized.” Meaning companies shouldn’t conceal data, Hill wrote.

The legislation specifies 55 kinds of data that aren’t open, however each side of the lawsuit agreed none of these exemptions apply on this case.

“It is a clear victory for presidency transparency and public data entry,” stated Josh Pierson, the senior workers legal professional for the ACLU of Kansas who argued the attraction earlier than the courtroom. “It affirms what we’ve stated all alongside  — that Secretary Scott Schwab violated KORA, and that authorities companies ought to be working to make data extra clear, moderately than much less.”

Hammet tried to get provisional poll stories by submitting an open data request to every of the state’s county clerks, who administer elections. One clerk stated in an e-mail that Schwab’s workplace had instructed clerks at a statewide convention not to answer Hammet’s request. The secretary denied giving that instruction.

Schwab argued that he was being held hostage by KORA, and that his motivation for disabling entry to public data is irrelevant.

Hill stated the courtroom can’t “see how this KORA request held the secretary hostage when all it required was for considered one of his workers to push a button on the pc.”

The secretary’s declare that he not can produce the provisional poll document is “disingenuous,” Hill wrote.

“What may be turned off may be turned on,” Hill wrote. “When the secretary directed ES&S to show off the pc function that generates the provisional poll element report — a report accurately declared to be a public document — he denied affordable public entry to that public document. That denial of public inspection of a public document violates the Kansas Open Data Act.”

The appeals courtroom directed the district courtroom to order Schwab to revive the reporting function.