Andrew Cilek, et al.,

1
STATE OF MINNESOTA

IN SUPREME COURT

A18-1140

Court of Appeals Lillehaug, J.
Dissenting, Gildea, C.J., Anderson, J.

Andrew Cilek, et al.,

Respondents,

vs. Filed: April 8, 2020
Office of Appellate Courts
Office of the Minnesota Secretary of State, et al.,

Appellants.
________________________

Erick G. Kaardal, Mohrman, Kaardal & Erickson, P.A., Minneapolis, Minnesota, for
respondents.

Keith Ellison, Attorney General, Christopher M. Kaisershot, Nathan J. Hartshorn, Assistant
Attorneys General, Saint Paul, Minnesota, for appellants.

Teresa J. Nelson, David P. McKinney, American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota,
Minneapolis, Minnesota, for amicus curiae American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota.

Douglas P. Seaton, Upper Midwest Law Center, Golden Valley, Minnesota; and

James V.F. Dickey, Hellmuth & Johnson, Edina, Minnesota, for amicus curiae Center of
the American Experiment.

Brett D. Kelley, Kelley, Wolter & Scott, P.A., Minneapolis, Minnesota, for amicus curiae
Judicial Watch, Inc.

Lisa M. Needham, Minneapolis, Minnesota, for amicus curiae League of Women Voters
Minnesota.

Mahesha P. Subbaraman, Subbaraman PLLC, Minneapolis, Minnesota, for amici curiae
Public Record Media and The Minnesota Coalition on Government Information.
________________________
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S Y L L A B U S

Read together, the plain language of relevant provisions of the Minnesota
Government Data Practices Act, Minn. Stat. §§ 13.01, 13.607 (2018), and the Minnesota
Election Law, Minn. Stat. § 201.091 ( 2018 & Supp. 2019), limits access to the voter
registration list contained in the Statewide Voter Registration Syste m. Access by
registered voters is limited to “public information lists” and to information provided by the
secretary of state.
Reversed.
O P I N I O N

LILLEHAUG, Justice.

This case is about a Minnesota voter’s request for access to information in the
Statewide Voter Registration System, which contains Minnesota’s statewide voter
registration list. The case turns on the relationship between portions of the Minnesota
Government Data Practices Act , specifically Minn. Stat. § § 13.01, 13.607 (2018) , and a
provision of the Minnesota Election Law, Minn. Stat. § 201.091 (2018 & Supp. 2019).
Reading together the plain language of the se statutes, we conclude that registered
Minnesota voters have access to “public information lists” as defined by law, as well as to
information provided by the secretary of state. But the Legislature has restricted access to
the other information sought by respondents. Accordingly, we reverse the court of appeals.
FACTS

Minnesota has a “single, official, centralized, interactive computerized statewide
voter registration list . . . [that] constitutes the official list of every legally registered voter
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in the state.” Minn. Stat. § 201.021 (2018). This list is contained in the statewide voter
registration system, known as the SVRS . See Minn. Stat. § 201.081, subd. 1(a) (2018)
(“The statewide registration system is the official record of registered voters.”); see also
Minn. Stat. § 201.022, subd. 1 (2018).
“The secretary of state is responsible for defining, maintaining, and administering”
the SVRS. Minn. Stat. § 201.021. As presently defined and maintained, the SVRS is a
database of records on each of the 5.42 million individua ls who have registered at some
point to vote in Minnesota, of which 3.26 million are currently registered. Each voter’s
record in the SVRS has up to 19 data fields: full name; voter identification number; address;
date of birth; phone number; e-mail address; driver’s license number or last four digits of
a social security number; county of residence; election district information; registration
status; basis for registration cha llenge, if any; registration submission method; original
registration date; date(s) of updated registration(s); list of prior elections in which the voter
voted; status as a voter whose data has been removed from a public information list to
protect the voter’s safety; status as a recurring absentee voter; previous name, if any; and
out-of-state previous address, if any.
The SVRS exists because Minnesota statutes require county auditors and the
secretary of state to cooperate to build and maintain it. Under section 201.021, the county
auditors are the chief registrars of voters and the chief custodian s of their counties’
registration records. Under section 201.091, subdivision 1, each county auditor prepares
and maintains a current list of registered voters in the county—the “master list.” These
lists are entered into the SVRS. Minn. Stat. § 201.091, subd. 1.
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To maintain the SVRS as an “interactive computerized” list, Minn. Stat. § 201.021,
the secretary of state and the county auditors work together to update the master lists, Minn.
Stat. § 201.091, subds. 1–2. The “updated master list” for each precinct is prepared for
absentee voting, and a “final corrected master list ” is prepared for election -day voting.
Minn. Stat. § 201.091, subd. 2. The Legislature has expressly limited access to the master
list; “[t]he information contained in the master list may only be made available to public
officials for purposes related to election administration, jury selection, and in response to
a law enforcement inquiry . . . .” Id., subd. 1.
The Legislature has allowed some of the information in the SVRS to be made
available for inspection in the form of a “public information list.” Id., subd. 4. The statute
spells out who has access to the public information list, for what purposes, and what
information is on it.
The public information list is not generally available to anyone—it is only available
to Minnesota voters. Id., subd. 5. To inspect or acquire the list, voters must state in writing
that they will not use “any information contained in the list for purposes unrelated to
elections, political activities, or law enforcement.” Id., subd. 4. The information included
on the public information list is: voter name (unless withheld for safety), address, year of
birth, voting history, telephone number (if provided), and voting district . Id. Other voter
registration information is not on the public information list.
The statute also contains special protections for certain kinds of vote r registration
information. Political party choice for the presidential nomination primary is “private data
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on individuals” under the Data Practices Act, 1 but must be provided to the applicable
political party chair. Id., subd. 4a. Also expressly excluded from both the public
information list and from a response to a law enforcement inquiry are “[r]estricted data”:
date of birth, social security number, driver’s license number, identification card number,
military identification card number, and passport number. Id., subd. 9.
With this statutory background in mind, we turn to the facts of this case. Andrew
Cilek is the executive director of the Minnesota Voters Alliance, a non-profit organization
concerned with government and electoral oversight. On July 21, 2017, Cilek, on behalf of
his organization, sought from the Secretary of State “access to non -private government
data” from the SVRS. His request included “[v]oter registration, status and voting history
information on every Minnesota voter, whether active, inactive or deleted whom the
secretary of state maintains or has maintained voter registration data from January 1st, 2016
to present.” Cilek’s non-exhaustive list of data being sought included:
• Voter ID #
• First, middle, and last names, and any suffix
• Address
• Phone number (if available)
• Year of birth
• Voter history indicating ballot type (i.e., in-person or absentee)
• Voter status (i.e., active, inactive, deleted, challenged, etc.)
• Reason for challenge or other status (i.e., felon, address, etc.)
• All other information routinely provided on the public information CD
(“detailed history for all elections”).

1 “ ‘Private data on individuals’ are data made by statute or federal law applicable to
the data: (a) not public; and (b) accessible to the individual subject of those data.” Minn.
Stat. § 13.02, subd. 12.
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Cilek later clarified his request . He said that he did not seek data considered
restricted under Minn. Stat. § 201.091, subd. 9; data regarding voters who, for reasons of
safety, have with held their information from public information list s under Minn. Stat.
§ 201.091, subd. 4; and data regarding voters who are participants in the Safe at Home
Program.2
On August 1, 2017, the Secretary responded, informing Cilek that he was entitled
to information in the SVRS related to currently registered Minnesota voters—essentially,
the public information list s—including “voter name, voter address, year of birth of the
voter, voting history, information on the voting districts in which the voter resides and is
eligible to vote, and the telephone number, if available.” The Secretary declined to provide
the rest of the information Cilek sought . Specifically, the Secretary declined to produce
SVRS information on voter status, the reasons for challenges to voter registration, and
information related to individuals who were not currently registered voters.
Cilek sued the Secretary, alleging violations of the Data Practices Act and s eeking
injunctive and declaratory relief to compel production of the requested data. The district
court granted summary judgment to Cilek, and ordered the Secretary to produce th e
requested data. The court of appeals affirmed. Cilek v. Office of the Minn. Sec’y of State,
927 N.W.2d 327 (Minn. App. 2019). We granted the Secretary of State’s petition for
further review.

2 The Safe at Home Program is a confidentiality prog ram that reclassifies data on
certain individuals as private. See Minn. Stat. § 13.045.
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ANALYSIS
This appeal arises out of the district court’s grant of summary judgment. The facts
are undisputed and summary judgment was granted on a question of law. As a result, our
review is de novo. State v. Minn. Sch. of Bus., 899 N.W.2d 467, 471 (Minn. 2017). The
question of statutory interpretation before us presents a question of law that we also review
de novo. Bruton v. Smithfield Foods, Inc., 923 N.W.2d 661, 664 (Minn. 2019). The object
of statutory interpretation “is to ascertain and effectuate the intention of the legislature.”
Minn. Stat. § 645.16 (2018). “ If the intent is clear, we apply the statute according to its
plain meaning.” Fish v. Ramler Trucking, Inc., 935 N.W.2d 738, 741 (Minn. 2019). “[W]e
do not add words or phrases to unambiguous statutes or rules.” Walsh v. U.S. Bank, N.A.,
851 N.W.2d 598, 604 (Minn. 2014).
This case requires that we interpret—and read together—portions of the Minnesota
Government Data Practices Act, Minn. Stat. § § 13.01–.90, and the Minnesota Election
Law, as defined by Minn. Stat. § 200.01 (2018). The Data Practices Act “regulates the
collection, creation, storage, maintenance, dissemination, and access to government data
in government entities.” Minn. Stat. § 13.01, subd. 3. It prescribes a general regime by
which data is presumed to be public and accessible unless classified as “nonpublic or
protected nonpublic, or with respect to data on individuals, as private or confidential.”
Minn. Stat. § 13.03, subd. 1; see also id., subd. 3.
As the Data Practices Act makes clear in its opening section, however, t his regime
has its exceptions, including some not contained in chapter 13. Some of the Data Practices
Act’s sections refer to—and, essentially, incorporate—statutory sections codified outside
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of the Act. Minn. Stat. § 13.01, subd. 5(a). Those sections perform one or more of three
functions; notwithstanding the general provisions of the Act that follow, they “classify
government data as other than public, place restrictions on access to government data, or
involve data sharing.” Id. (emphasis added).
Relevant here, Minn. Stat. § 13.607 (2018), part of the Data Practices Act, expressly
limits the Act’s general regime when campaign and election data are at issue. Mirroring
the language of section 13.01, subdivision 5(a), section 13.607, subdivision 1, provides that
certain sections codified outside chapter 13 “classify campaign, ethics, and election data as
other than public, place restrictions on access to government data, or involve data
sharing.”3 (Emphasis added.) Five of the succeeding subdivisions in section 13.607 speak
of classification and four speak of access, using the terms “disclosure” or “access.” All
nine subdivisions limit data available to the public notwithstanding the rest of the Data
Practices Act. Minn. Stat. § 13.607, subds. 2–8.
Subdivision 6 deals expressly with “registered voter lists .” Subdivision 6 states:
“Access to registered voter lists is governed by section 201.091.” Although “access” is not
defined in the Data Practices Act, its plain and ordinary meaning relative to information is
the “freedom or ability to obtain or make use of.” Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate
Dictionary 49 (1990). An example of such access would be to “make use of . . . classified
material.” The American Heritage Dictionary 10 (5 th ed. 2011) . And “governed by”

3 As demonstrated by section 13.01, subdivision 5(a), and section 13.607, subdivision
1, the Legislature limits data availability either by classification or by access restrictions.
In the case of voter registration lists, the Legislature did the latter. Minn. Stat. § 13.607,
subd. 6; Minn. Stat. § 201.091, subds. 1, 4. Either limitation is effective.
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means “[t]o exercise a deciding or determining influence on.” The American Heritage
Dictionary 761 (5th ed. 2011).
Therefore, regardless of how the data in registered voter lists would be classified
under the Data Practices Act, the plain language of the Act itself limits access—the right
to obtain or use—to that which is allowed in the governing statute, Minn. Stat. § 201.091.
No other interpretation is reasonable. Thus, Cilek’s data practices request for access to
information from the registered voter lists depends on whether he is entitled to the
information under section 201.091. If so, he has a right to access. If not, he has no right
to access.
Turning now to Cilek’s request, the Secretary of State provided to Cilek —in an
electronic medium—all of the information on the public information list, which included
the name, address, year of birth, and voting history of each registered Minnesota voter.
The Secretary thereby complied with section 201.091, subdivisions 4 and 5.
Cilek, though, contends that the Secretary was required to provide more. He asserts
that the Secretary should not have withheld three categories of information: voter status,
the reasons for challenges to voter registration, and information related to individuals who
are not currently registered voters.
We disagree. We conclude that the Secretary of State followed the plain language
of the Data Practices Act and the Minnesota Election Law. Section 13.607, subdivision 6,
clearly restricts access to registered voter lists to what is allowed by section 201.091.
Subdivisions 4 and 5 of section 201.091 clearly give access only to Minnesota voters and
then only to the information on the public information lists. Information not on the public
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information lists is not accessible, except to public officials for specified purposes. Minn.
Stat. § 201.091, subd. 1. Thus, because he is not a public official, Cilek has no legal right
of access to the three categories of information withheld by the S ecretary. In declining
access to that information, the Secretary of State followed the law.4
It is true that, u nder subdivision 4, “[t]he secretary of state may provide copies of
. . . other information from the statewide registration system for uses related to elections,
political activities, or in response to a law enforcement inquiry from a public official
concerning a failure to comply with any criminal statu te or any state or local tax statute.”
(Emphasis added.) Subdivision 4 appears to permit the secretary to provide more
information than is on the public information list. See Minn. Stat. § 645.44, subd. 15
(2018) (“ ‘May’ is permissive.”).
In this ins tance, the Secretary chose not to invoke that permissive authority. W e
need not reach the question of the circumstances under which a secretary’s decision not to
provide such information would constitute an abuse of discretion. We need not because

4 The dissent claims that this analysis both “ignores” the Data Practices Act’s general
presumption that data is public and turns it “on its head.” Hardly. We fully acknowledge
the Act’s general presumption—a key feature since it was a dded to the Act in 1991. See
Act of June 3, 1991, ch. 319, § 1, 1991 Minn. Laws 2170, 2170 (codified at Minn. Stat.
§ 13.01, subd. 3 (2018)). But one year later, in 1992, the Legislature recognized that other
statutes “place restrictions on access to government data.” Act of Apr. 29, 1992, ch. 569,
§ 4, 1992 Minn. Laws 1916, 1918 (codified as amended at Minn. Stat. § 13.01, subd. 5(a)
(2018)). A separate amendment to the Act , in 1997, made clear—in the plain language
upon which we rely today —that access to voter registration lists is governed by section
201.091, not by the general presumption. Act of June 30, 1997, ch. 3, § 17, 1997 Minn.
Laws 1st Spec. Sess. 3188, 3196 (codified as amended at Minn. Stat. § 13.607, subd. 6).

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Cilek does not attack the S ecretary’s decision in that way. 5 B ased on his request, Cilek
had access to—and received—all of the data to which he, as a Minnesota voter, was entitled
as a matter of law.
Cilek makes two additional arguments as to why the S ecretary of State’s decision
not to give Cilek access to more voter registration information was unlawful. First, he
attempts to distinguish between “data” and “lists,” arguing that, even if the Data Practices
Act cedes authority to section 201.091 over “lists,” it does not cede authority over “data.”
Cilek’s distinction is one without a difference . By statute, the entirety of Minnesota’s
official “statewide voter registration list,” Minn. Stat. § 201.021, is housed within the
SVRS, and incorporates county lists, see Minn. Stat. § 201.022, subd. 1. A list is composed
of data or, as the Legislature put it, a list has “information” within it. Minn. Stat.
§§ 201.022, subd. 1, 201.091, subds. 4–5. It would be nonsensical to say that the
Legislature limited access to the list, but simultaneously allowed access to all of the
information—the data—that makes up the list. To the contrary, the Legislature made clear
in section 13.607, subdivision 6, and section 201.091, what information is accessible, and
for what purposes.
Second, Cilek argues that some of the data he seeks, including voter status and the
reasons for challenges to vot er registration, are accessible as “voting history” under the
definition of public information lists in section 201.091, subdivision 4. The Secretary of

5 At oral argument, counsel agreed that Cilek had not pleaded that the S ecretary had
abused his discretion. Therefore, we do not decide whether he did. See Thiele v. Stich ,
425 N.W.2d 580, 582 (Minn. 1988).
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State responds that voting history does not include a voter’s present status, but whether a
specific voter has voted in certain elections. We agree with the Secretary that voter history
means whether and when a registered voter has voted in the past. See, e.g., Minn. Stat. §
201.171 (2018) (stating that, “[w]ithin six weeks after every election, the county auditor
shall post the voting history for every person who voted in the election”; a late or rejected
absentee or mail ballot “is not considered voting history for the purpose of public
information lists available under section 201.091, subdivision 4”); Minn. Stat. § 204B.40
(2018) (“No polling place roster may be inspected until the voting history for that precinct
has been posted.”).
In summary, t he Data Practices Act provides that certain restrictions on access to
government data are governed by sections codified outside of the Act. In the case of voter
registration lists, access is governed by Minn. Stat. § 201.091, part of the Minnesota
Election Law . Under that statute, and as a Minnesota voter, Cilek has access to the
information on the publi c information lists . But he does not have access to the voter
registration information not on the publi c information lists. T he Secretary of S tate
interpreted the law correctly.
In so ruling, we state what the law is, and express no opinion about what it should
be. See Axelberg v. Comm’r of Pub. Safety , 848 N.W.2d 206, 213 (Minn. 2014) (stating
that when a statute “needs revision in order to make it embody a more sound public policy,
the Legislature, not the j udiciary, must be the reviser”). Access to “Big Data ” about
Minnesota voters requires the balancing of poli cy values such as transparency, privacy,
and discretion. Such balancing is the province of the Legislature that wrote the Data
13
Practices Act and the Minnesota Election Law, the statutes whose words we have read and
interpreted today.
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, we reverse the decision of the court of appeals.
Reversed.

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D I S S E N T

GILDEA, Chief Justice (dissenting).
The majority acknowledges that the Data Practices Act, Minn. Stat. § § 13.01–.90
(2018), presumes that government data is public. But the majority ignores this presumption
and relies on a portion of the Minnesota Election Law, Minn. Stat. § 201.091 (2018 &
Supp. 2019), to conclude that certain data the government has on registered voters is not
public. According to the majority, because the Election Law permits public access to a
“public information list,” the Secretary of State may deny public access to voter registration
data that is not part of a public information list. Because the majority flips the presumption
of public access and permits the Secretary of State to make his own classifications of
government data, I respectfully dissent.
The Data Practices Act provides that “[a]ll government data collected, created,
received, maintained or disseminated by a government entity shall be public unless
classified by statute” or other law as not public. Minn. Stat. § 13.03, subd. 1 (emphasis
added). Public data is data that is “accessible to the public.” Minn. Stat. § 13.02,
subds. 14–15; see KSTP -TV v. Ramsey Cty., 806 N.W.2d 785, 789 (Minn. 2011)
(explaining that “ ‘not public data’ is all other government data”). Because there is no
statute or other law that classifies the disputed data that respondents seek as not public,
under the plain language of the Data Practices Act, the data is necessarily public.
An example helps to illustrate how the Data Practices Act is designed to work.
Respondents seek data relating to the reason voters were challenged at registration. There
is no dispute in this case that the government is in possession of this data. Under the Data
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Practices Act then, this data is “government data [,]” and it is public unless some other
statute “classifie[s]” it as other than public. Minn. Stat. § 13.03, subd. 1.
Rather than adhere to the statute’s plain language, the majority concludes that the
data respondents seek is not public because it is not included on the “public information
list” described in Minn. Stat. § 201.901. But nothing in section 201.901 or in any other
statute classifies this data as non-public. The majority does not contend otherwise or point
to any provision anywhere that classifies the data as something other than public.
The majority instead concludes that the data at issue is not public because the Data
Practices Act provid es that “[a]ccess to registered voter lists is governed by
section 201.091.” Minn. Stat. § 13.607, subd. 6. This provision does not support the
majority’s result.
First, subdivision 6 is not about classification of data; it is about access to data.
Reading section 13.607 as a whole makes this clear. In subdivisions 3, 3a, 4, 5a, and 8 of
section 13.607, the Legislature makes plain that other statutes outside the Data Practices
Act address the classification of data (i.e., whether it is public, nonpublic, or private). See
Minn. Stat. § 13.607, subds. 3–4, 5a, 8 (noting that data is “classified” under cited statutes).
Subdivision 6 is not one of these provisions. Subdivision 6 is not about classification of
data; subdivision 6 is about access to data. See Minn. Stat. § 13.607, subd. 6 (“Access to
registered voter lists is governed by section 201.091.”). When the Legislature uses
different words, as it did in section 13.607, we presume that the Legislature means different
things. League of Women Vote rs of Minn. v. Richie, 819 N.W.2d 636, 662 (Minn. 2012)
(Page, J., dissenting) (“[W]hen the Legislature uses two different words in the same statute,
D-3
the court presumes that the Legislature means two different things.”). The majority
effectively ignores this principle, but that disregard is not consistent with our precedent.
Because subdivision 6 is not about classification but about access, it does nothing to change
the public classification of the data at issue.1
The Election Law itself confirms this interpretation because there is nothing in the
Election Law that classifies the disputed voter registration data as not public. The majority
cites provisions of section 201.091 that address access to public information lists. Because
these provisions “cle arly give access only to Minnesota voters and then only to the
information on the public information lists[,]” the majority reasons that “[i]nformation not
on the public information lists” is generally “not accessible.” In other words, the majority
holds that voter registration data is not public unless specifically designated as public. This
reasoning turns the presumption of public access on its head. See Minn. Stat. § § 13.01,
subd. 3, 13.03, subd. 1.
Moreover, even if Minn. Stat. § 13.607, subd. 6, were applicable, it would not
support the majority’s desired result because access to registered voter lists is not at issue
here. This appeal concerns voter registration data —data that is not part of a registered

1 The majority’s one -word proclamation that it i s really not re -writing the Data
Practices Act is hardly persuasive. Neither is the majority’s reliance on some of the Data
Practices Act’s legislative history. The majority does not contend that there is ambiguity
in the statute and so turning to legisl ative history is inconsistent with the direction the
Legislature has given us in Minn. Stat. § 645.16 (2018) (noting that “[w]hen the words of
a law are not explicit, the intention of the legislature may be ascertained by considering . . .
legislative history”), and with our own precedent, e.g., Svihel Vegetable Farm, Inc. v. Dep’t
of Empl’t & Econ. Dev., 929 N.W.2d 391, 394 n.4 (Minn. 2019) (declining to address
legislative history because the statute was not ambiguous).
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voter list or public information list. See Minn. Stat. § 201.091, subd. 4 (addressing access
to “a list of registered voters prepared from the public information list”). Therefore, the
majority’s reliance on the exception in the Data Practices Act and the access provisions in
the Election Law is misplaced.
In sum, the majority’s holding gives the Secretary of State discretion to classify
voter registration data as not public, even if the data is not designated by any statute as not
public. This holding conflicts with the central tenet of the Data Practices Act that “all
‘government data’ shall be public unless otherwise classified by statute[.]” Demers v. City
of Minneapolis, 468 N.W.2d 71, 73 (Minn. 1991). Decisions about the classification of
government data and public access to voter registration data are policy matters for the
Legislature. As the majority recognizes, if the law needs revision, “the Legislature, not the
judiciary, must be the reviser.” Axelberg v. Comm’r of Pub. Safety, 848 N.W.2d 206, 213
(Minn. 2014). Accordingly, I would affirm the court of appeals and conclude that
respondents are entitled to the disputed data because the data is public under the Da ta
Practices Act.

ANDERSON, Justice (dissenting).
I join in the dissent of the Chief Justice.