The Maryland Attorney General’s Office said Thursday that it is sending a cease-and-desist letter to a pair of Washington D.C.-based nonprofits for threatening to expose individuals’ voting history.

The Center for Voter Information and the Voter Participation Center sent “voting report cards” to Marylanders that described whether they voted in the previous four elections, according to a news release from the attorney general’s office. The report cards also listed the voting histories of two neighbors on the same street while redacting their names and addresses.

“Let me be clear: these unnerving letters are unacceptable, and Maryland voters should know that their decision to vote this Election Day is entirely theirs to make,” Attorney General Anthony Brown said in the release.

The mailers also contain a statement that the center “will be reviewing these records after the election to determine whether or not you joined your neighbors in voting.”

Maryland law permits a requestor to receive a copy of the voter registration list with voters’ election participation history but prohibits actions designed to influence or attempt to influence a voter’s decision to vote through the use of force, fraud, threat, menace, intimidation, bribery, reward, or offer of reward, according to the release.

“The recipients to whom our office has spoken have uniformly described feeling intimidated, threatened, shocked, and ill-at-ease by this mailing,” the attorney general’s office said. “This threat to publicly expose the recipient’s voting record violates both Maryland and federal laws.”

The nonprofits have previously responded to criticism from officials in other states, noting it is a get-out-the-vote effort aiming to increase participation from “underrepresented populations including people of color, young people, and unmarried women.”

The nonprofits have described their mail and digital campaigns as encouraging voter participation and making it easier for people to register. Information about voter registration and participation is public in most states, including Maryland, and is often used by political groups and other get-out-the-vote efforts. That data does not include who voters ultimately voted for.

The groups described themselves as nonpartisan, though their founder, Page Gardner, and CEO, Tom Lopach, are both former Democratic strategists.

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