Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown has sent a cease and desist letter to an anti-government group that sends threatening mailers.

Mr. Brown demanded, as a Democrat and partner of the Voter Participation Center’s Center for Voter Information that it stop sending mailers which, according to his office, threatened to expose publicly registered voters who didn’t vote in the election on Tuesday.

Voting is one of the most important freedoms that Marylanders enjoy. “Any action that intimidates potential voters, particularly on the eve a such an important election, will be not tolerated,” said Mr. Brown in a Thursday statement. “Let’s be clear: these unnerving emails are unacceptable. Maryland voters should understand that the decision to vote on Election Day is theirs alone.”

The Attorney General’s Office wrote in a letter to the Center for Voter Information that they began receiving complaints from voters on Wednesday after the mailings were sent.

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The mailings, labeled as “Voting report card,” contained the recipient’s full name, the names and addresses of two neighbors, and their voting history in the last four elections. This information was retrieved by the organization from state voter records that are publicly available.

Gail Kitch is the chairperson of the Center for Voter Information.

The letter stated: “Remember that who you vote is private but whether you voted or not is public.” We are sending you and your neighbors this mailing in order to encourage election participation. We have not revealed the names or street numbers of your neighbors in order to respect their privacy. However, these voting records are accurate.

We will review these records to see if you voted with your neighbors.

In his letter, Mr. Brown said that the mailers violated Maryland and federal laws.

Maryland law allows a requestor a copy the voter registration list, which includes the history of election participation. However, the state prohibits any conduct that is intended to “influence a voter’s decisions through force, fraud or intimidation or threats, or by using force, fraud or threats.”

Mr. Brown wrote that “CVI/VPC’s blunt recourse [to social coercion] expose[s] a registered voter to illegal forms of pressure in order to ‘promot[e] election participation’.”

He ordered that the organization enter into an agreement that would be enforced by a court to stop sending out the letter and any other threatening communications in the future, as well as to not carry out the threats contained in the mailings. The Center for Voter Information had until Friday to comply.

Scott E. Thomas a lawyer for Center for Voter Information called Mr. Brown’s accusations “irresponsible” in a Friday letter and questioned Attorney General’s characterizations of the organization’s mailers.

Mr. Thomas described the mailers in his letter as “constitutionally protected get-out the vote letters” and stated that the letters’ content did not violate Maryland or federal laws.

He stated that it is neither “threatening” or “intimidating,” to encourage voting through mailers, by “discussing the neighborhood participation rates and saying that the records would be reviewed after election to determine if the recipient joined in their neighbors’ voting.”

Mr. Thomas accused Mr. Brown, who he said was also baseless, of claiming the organization had sent text or mail messages with the statements “go to the polls and cast a ballot; or vote in any other way” and “We will be sharing a final report of those voters who did not vote.”

Thomas wrote: “Your letter also relied upon an ‘implication,’ that VPC & CVI plan to publish information that identifies specific voters and their voting histories.” “That’s simply not true. “VPC or CVI have never done or will do that.”

He wrote: “To speculate otherwise is irresponsible.” We expect you to correct the record based on an accurate assessment of the facts and refrain from taking legal action.

House Republicans claimed earlier this week that the outside group had disguised mailers as nonpartisan guides to voter information in a number of races which could determine control of the lower house.

The Republicans claimed that the Center for Voter Information was trying to suppress voters by sending out mailers with false information about candidates’ positions on immigration and small business support.