More and more states are making voter registration verification records publicly available with free online searches.

Most of the state voter registration searches require users to input one or more of the following pieces of information:

- The person’s first and / or last names.

- The person’s address, often including county.

- The zip code of the person’s residence.

- The person’s date of birth.

The Federal Voting Assistance Program has a list of states that offer online voter registration record verification online.

Currently, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, DC, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia offer some type of voter registration records search online.

You can access the Federal Voting Assistance Program’s list at State Voter Registration Verification Web sites.

Source: PI Buzz

Connecticut’s state judicial system has made public criminal and motor vehicle violation records available with a free website search.

According to an Associated Press article, this move towards more open and easily accessible public records has drawn praise from freedom of information advocates and criticism from privacy activists.

Over 1 million of Connecticut’s criminal conviction records, going back to 2000, are now available with one web search. The open records effort to put public criminal records on the web came from the recommendation of a state task force of judges, state officials, attorneys and members of the media.

The task force recommended putting all felony and misdemeanor convictions on the web, allowing misdemeanor records to be removed after five years.

Criminal case records and motor vehicle violations were already a matter of public record, but the web search makes them available without people having to make a special trip to the state archives and search through public record files.

You can do your own public records search on Connecticut’s Conviction & Bond Forfeiture Dispositions Criminal/Motor Vehicle database by defendant name at jud2.ct.gov

Source: stltoday.com

EastValleyTribune.com is reporting on an Arizona Court of Appeals ruling, favoring faster responses on the part of state and local governments to public records requests.

The Arizona Court of Appeals ruled unanimously on Tuesday that government departments cannot make people wait for weeks or months for public records that have been requested.

The public records ruling states in part that government records custodians “shall promptly furnish such copies, photographs or printouts.” The ruling goes further by saying that any public records request that is not handled promptly is deemed to have been denied.

The ruling did not specify a time for “promptly”. However, Justice Murray Snow stated that there is no way that a delay of more than 100 days, as happened in a case involving the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office, can be considered reasonable.

The ruling acknowledged that delays have to be judged on a case-by-case basis. However, the justices also concluded that public agencies can’t avoid their legal duties for prompt responses simply because a government employee neglected to honor the request.

The public records legal case involves a number of requests made by New Times for sheriff records. These ranged from personnel records to investigation reports about Dan Saban — at the time of the request, Dan Saban was running against incumbent Sheriff Joe Arpaio — on sexual misconduct charges.

The records requests took over 143 days to handle, after the election was over.

The court ruled that this was not a “prompt” handling of the request under Arizona’s public records laws.

The ruling, however, does not end the legal battle. The judges sent the case back to the trial judge to decide if the delays were in bad faith or were arbitrary and capricious. These legal standards will determine if the county is obligated to pay the legal fees for the newspaper.

Source: EastValleyTribune.com

The Associated Press is reporting on a story out of Washington, where the public records requests of a convicted and imprisoned arsonist are testing the state’s public records laws.

Allan Parmelee has been filing hundreds of public records requests in an attempt to dig up background information on the judges, attorneys and police officers that helped convict him in the firebombing the cars of two attorneys.

Now a prosecutor is asking a judge for permission to ignore Parmelee’s public record requests and to bar him from filing any more. King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg wrote a declaration, stating that Parmelee was using the state’s open public records laws to harrass law enforcement officials and other employees in the criminal justice system.

From his prison cell, Parmelee has requested numerous public records, including physical addresses, pictures, payroll records, work schedules, professional backgrounds and birth records — for thousands of Washington State’s police officers and state Department of Corrections employees.

A number of requests since last October request public records about all of Prosecutor Satterberg’s office as well as pictures and personnel records for three assistant prosecutors who worked on his case. Parmelee is also seeking video and other electronic images of two Superior Court judges, including the judge that sentenced him to 24 years in prison.

Parmelee has also asked the state attorney general’s office for public records pertaining to “working hours, schedules … (and) photographs in color” for eight current and former assistant attorneys general.

This bizarre case is testing the limits of Washington state’s Public Records Act. The state has already won previous orders against disclosing certain records from Parmelee. However, in one particular case, Parmelee was awarded $19,000 in fees from the Department of Corrections for delaying his request for certain public records.

Parmelee can be prosecuted if he uses the information obtained from his record requests to harrass or stalk people from prison.

In Washington State, any government agency or state employee can request a court order blocking the release of public records if that disclosure is viewed as not being in the public interest, even though the records may be allowed by law.

It will be interesting to see where this unusual case goes and how it will impact the public records laws not only of Washington State, but of other states as well.

Source: Associated Press

The Texas 3rd District Court of Appeals in Austin ruled on January 17, 2008 that the birth dates of Texas state employees are a matter of public record.

A public records legal battle over the birth date information began two years ago when Dallas Morning News reporter Jennifer LaFleur attempted to gain access to a current copy of the Texas state employee payroll database. The Texas comptroller’s office released most of the database; but, unlike in years past, decided to exclude the birth dates of the state employees.

Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn fought to make the birth dates private due to a fear of possible identity theft of state employees personal information.

The comptroller’s office is deciding on a possible appeal to the Texas Supreme Court.

Source: rcfp.org

RCFP.org provides a useful Open Government Guide to all 50 US states’ open records laws and open meetings public records. You can browse the open records directory by state or search the open public records laws by keyword.

The directory provides users with open record laws, a list of open records that are included or excluded from access, open record fees as well as information on police records and vital records access.

You can access the open records directory @ Open Records Laws.

Land records and property tax assessor searches for Jefferson County Wisconsin have been added to our Wisconsin property tax assessor page at the link below.

Wisconsin Land & Property Records.

The Lake County California Tax Assessor / Recorder property search has been added to Skipease.com.

You can access the Lake County Assessor search along with other county assessor searches for the state of California at the link below.

California Tax Assessor Searches.

The US Department of Justice has gathered all of the sex offender public records for all 50 states and put it in one centralized search. The National Sex Offender Public Registry web site allows users to lookup sex offender public records by state search; name search; zip code search; county search; city & town search or national search.

You can access the National Sex Offender Public Registry @ National Sex Offender Public Registry.

The Center for Public Integrity has a public database online, where users can find out which financial and business interests have ties to state politicians.

From the site –

State legislators directly influence the lives of all Americans. The 7,400 lawmakers in state capitals across the country passed close to 40,000 laws in 2005 alone and spent an estimated $1.3 trillion in taxpayer money in the same year. Ever wonder what outside financial interests legislators making these decisions might possess? Find out more about the potential for conflict of interest and view legislators’ actual disclosure filings by selecting a state.

The site is a great resource for everyday citizens as well as campaign / election researchers.

You can search the database @ Our Private Legislators.