Before Greene County Clerk Shane Schoeller sued Laurie Huddleston over her Freedom of Information Act request, he called her on the phone.
“I wanted to make sure she knew when she received the paperwork, that she understood she had done nothing wrong,” he said. “If there had been another path to take to get this question before a circuit judge without naming the requestor as a Defendant, I would have taken that path.”
Huddleston’s FOIA query sought Cast Vote Records from the 2020 presidential election but Schoeller wasn’t clear on whether they could be lawfully released to the public.
A Cast Vote Record is an electronic record of a voter's selections that is used for auditing purposes.
“One statute says to provide the records when a person requests them, and another statute says you have to protect the secrecy of the ballot, and there's concern that when you print the Cast Vote Record, it prints in the order of how voters are voting at the polling location,” Schoeller told the St. Louis Record. "I do think there was some misunderstanding in how our attorney filed the case."
Schoeller's lawsuit, filed by N. Austin Fax, is seeking a declaratory judgment from the Circuit Court of Greene County.
“I went to great lengths to make sure that we are transparent and, as a matter of fact, I was originally willing and ready to provide the record until I became more aware of how it prints out in order and when I was informed of that, I grew concerned and spoke with the Secretary of State's office because they were concerned about it, too and reached out to me,” Schoeller said in an interview.
The lawsuit has drawn the ire of local and national election integrity groups like Cause of America and Missouri Canvassers.
"I'm not a party to that lawsuit, but for some reason, the clerk Shane Schoeller felt it necessary to mention that Mike Lindell told people to get these cash vote records, CVRs, and then he names me in there and my hometown where I live," said Linda Rantz, a co-organizer of Missouri Canvassers.
As previously reported in the St. Louis Record, My Pillow CEO Mike Lindell, who launched Cause of America, labeled Schoeller a traitor.
But Schoeller hopes for an opportunity to explain to Lindell that the lawsuit was just a formality.
“I would ask Mr. Lindell to call me, and come meet with me,” Schoeller added. “I've never spoken with the gentleman. If you just hear the very preliminary information about the lawsuit, you could certainly draw conclusions but if he would give me an opportunity to explain it to him, hopefully, he would understand that I'm genuine in wanting to make sure that we're honoring the law. We have two statues that conflict and that are equally important.”
Schoeller is campaigning to replace Jay Ashcroft as Missouri's Secretary of State.