Todd Wallack v. Brookfield, Town of - Town Clerk (SPR 20210250)

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts William Francis Galvin, Secretary of the Commonwealth Public Records Division Rebecca S. Murray Supervisor of Records February 17, 2021 SPR21/0250 Michael Seery Town Clerk Town of Brookfield 6 Central Street Brookfield, MA 01506 Dear Mr. Seery: I have received the petition of Todd Wallack of the Boston Globe appealing the response of the Town of Brookfield (Town) to a request for public records. G. L. c. 66, § 10A; see also 950 C.M.R. 32.08(1). On December 29, 2020, Mr. Wallack requested “[a]n electronic copy of the [Town’s] public list of registered voters, also known as the voter file. (Please note, that I am not seeking a copy of the voter history file). . . .” The Town’s January 19, 2021 response In its January 19th response, the Town provided Mr. Wallack with an electronic copy of the “complete Street List Book for 2020” as a pdf file. Your response stated, “[h]i Todd, [a]ll the registered voters have an asterisk by their name.” In a February 2, 2021 petition to the Supervisor of Records (Supervisor), Mr. Wallack seeks to appeal the Town’s response for a copy of the voter roll (Extract #8). In his petition, Mr. Wallack states, “[t]he [T]own provided a PDF of its resident list, but has declined to provide its voter roll in machine-readable format. The Secretary has advised that Extract #8 of the voter roll is public. And G. L. c. 66, § 6A(d) requires [Records Access Officers] (RAOs) to provide data in machine-readable format when possible.” Further, Mr. Wallack suggested that he could provide the Town with a DropBox folder that the records could be saved to in order to provide him with the record in machine-readable format. As a result of Mr. Wallack’s petition, this appeal was opened. The Town is advised that pursuant to the Public Records Law, “[t]he records access officer shall provide the public records to a requestor by electronic means unless the record is not available in electronic form or the requestor does not have the ability to receive or access the records in a usable electronic form. The records access officer shall, to the extent feasible, One Ashburton Place, Room 1719, Boston, Massachusetts 02108 • (617) 727-2832• Fax: (617) 727-5914 sec.state.ma.us/pre • pre@sec.state.ma.us

Michael Seery SPR21/0250 Page 2 February 17, 2021 provide the public record in the requestor’s preferred format or, in the absence of a preferred format, in a searchable, machine readable format.” See G. L. c. 66, § 6A(d). Whereas Mr. Wallack specifically requested to receive the Voter Roll Extract #8, electronically via email, as a machine-readable file, such as CSV; other type of delimited text file; or Excel file, I find that the Town has not met its burden in demonstrating that it is not feasible to provide the Voter Roll Extract #8 in the requested format and sent via email. The Town must clarify this matter. Conclusion Accordingly, the Town is ordered to provide Mr. Wallack with a response to the request, in a manner consistent with this order, the Public Records Law and its Regulations within 10 business days. A copy of any such response must be provided to this office. It is preferable to send an electronic copy of this response to this office at pre@sec.state.ma.us. Sincerely, Rebecca S. Murray Supervisor of Records cc: Todd Wallack, Boston Globe