Imagine you’re a state election official. An ethical election official, of course: someone who maintains clean, up-to-date voter rolls, and who works to make it easier, not harder, for your state’s eligible citizens to vote. Someone who doesn’t snivel and lie about unfavorable election results, nor demand needless vote recounts, nor restrict early voting and ballot-box access. Someone who would never hire a Cyber Ninja or turn to The Pillow Guy for advice.

Someone who believes in… voting.

Since the US has no federal election agency, you’re on your own when it comes to maintaining your voter rolls. How the heck do you keep track of who’s moved out of state? Who’s died? Who’s accidentally registered twice? Who’s cheated? Who’s eligible to vote but is nonetheless unregistered? Somehow, you need to crosscheck voter data with that of other states in a way that’s accurate, ongoing, and guaranteed to preserve the privacy of voters’ sensitive information.

You need… ERIC.

Who?
In 2012, fed up with the hodgepodge of election data, election officials from Colorado, Delaware, Maryland, Nevada, Utah, Virginia, and Washington, with assistance from The Pew Charitable Trusts, rolled out the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC). The group was as bipartisan as they come: four founding states were GOP-led, three Democratic-led. Ultimately, 32 states and DC joined the consortium.

At least every 60 days, ERIC collects election- and DMV-data from member states, as well as federal data re: deaths and address changes. After anonymizing, encrypting, and comparing the data, ERIC generates four “list-maintenance” reports for member states:

· In-State Updates Report (identifies voters who’ve moved within the jurisdiction or who recently updated their contact information);

· Cross-State Movers (voters who’ve moved from one member state to another);

· Deceased;

· Duplicate (voters with duplicate registrations in member states).

In addition, ERIC provides member states with three other reports:

· Eligible but Unregistered*;

· National Change of Address (voters who’ve moved, using official data ERIC licenses from the USPS);

· Voter Participation (voters “who appear to have voted more than once in the member jurisdiction in the same [federal] election, in more than one member jurisdiction in the same election, or on behalf of a deceased voter within the member jurisdiction”). Nb: voter fraud is “vanishingly rare,” according to the Brennan Center for Justice.

* The “Eligible but Unregistered” report is generated solely by ERIC and does not involve any other “entity or vendor,” according to the website. It includes only individuals who have a driver’s license/state ID card issued by their DMV, and does not include political party affiliation, age, or racial data. At least once every two years, member states must send voter registration information to these individuals.

The consortium’s rules are deliberately, nay flagrantly, non-partisan. Membership is voluntary, with funding and governance shared by member states. The board and executive committee are bipartisan, and the chair alternates yearly between election directors from a red and a blue state. As a 501(c)(3), ERIC is explicitly prohibited from sharing data with third parties for partisan purposes, e.g. campaigns, political candidates, PACs, etc. To ensure that member states maintain complete control over their own voting records, ERIC remains disconnected from any state’s voter registration system.

Sounds pretty good, right? And in fact, it is. In its 11 years, ERIC has garnered kudos from red and blue states alike as the nation’s premier, and only, system for states to share election data. (The only other alternative, the Interstate Voter Registration Crosscheck, founded in 2005 by the KS Secretary of State, was so riddled with inaccuracies, data-security breaches, and racial bias, it was permanently shuttered in 2019.)

Since its founding, ERIC has helped blue and red member states clean up their voter rolls by identifying 24+ million in-state updates, almost 12 million cross-state movers, 1+ million in-state duplicate registrants, and 500K+ deceased voters. Even more exciting for democracy, states have been able to contact 4.4+ million potentially eligible but unregistered voters.

High Praise From Red States
GOP officials in particular, who might conceivably distrust ERIC as suspiciously nationalized or big-government, have praised its security benefits. Herewith, some quotes from GOP luminaries, as compiled in a recent ACLU Ohio report:

Systems like ERIC are an important tool for election administrators, and help prevent people from being registered in and trying to vote in multiple states.
— GA Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger

ERIC is a valuable and currently irreplaceable tool that allows us to remove unqualified voters from the voter registration rolls.
— SC State Election Commission spokesperson John Catalano

[ERIC] is one of the best fraud-fighting tools that we have.
— OH Secretary of State Frank LaRose

In Alabama, ERIC is used to preserve a clean and accurate voter list and to contact eligible residents who are not registered voters…These election security measures would not be possible without our partnership with ERIC.
— Former AL Secretary of State John Merrill

I have heard strong support for joining ERIC from supervisors of elections all over Florida, and I am excited to provide them with one more tool to serve voters in Florida. Joining ERIC keeps Florida at the forefront of election security.
— Former FL Secretary of State Laurel Lee

So Why On Earth…
… did three of the aforementioned states (FL, AL, OH) recently withdraw from ERIC? Not to mention IA, LA, MO, VA, and WV? ERIC is down to 26 member states plus DC, with others sure to withdraw in the near future. Why the exodus?

You’ll be shocked, shocked, to learn that right-wing media lit the fire. Dismayed by ERIC’s commitment to voter registration, a right-wing website published a four-part hatchet job in January 2022. (The site, a self-proclaimed “national leader in providing true and accurate news, commentary and opinion,” has also investigated the “Rise of the Marxist Horde And Their Assault On Our Sacred Rights,” and the “Biden regime’s” plot to plant “illegal aliens” across America — “Are They Moving To Your Community?”) Just for context.

The series paints ERIC as a nefarious cabal of academics, “Big Lie RINOs,” and sneaky “leftist” voter-registration activists, founded and funded by George Soros, of course. A year later, a twice-impeached sexual predator with a cult following and a capitalization problem jumped on the bandwagon, calling on Republican-led states to “immediately pull out of ERIC, the terrible Voter Registration System that ‘pumps the rolls’ for Democrats and does nothing to clean them up.”

And so some did.

Oh, Virginia.
Given the importance of its upcoming state-legislative elections, not to mention its status as an ERIC founding member (under a GOP Governor, no less), Virginia’s withdrawal is particularly distressing. Susan Beals, the VA Commissioner of Elections, cites “[m]omentum around the creation of viable alternatives to inter-state data sharing compacts” and “Virginia’s ability to replicate favorable ERIC functionality internally” as some reasons behind her decision to pull the plug.

“We will pursue other information arrangements with our neighboring states and look to other opportunities to partner with states in an apolitical fashion,” she says, giving zero examples of ERIC’s politicization. Beals, a former aide to self-described “Trump in heels” State Senator Amanda Chase, recently attended a Heritage Foundation conference on elections, a fact I’m sure is completely irrelevant to her decision.

ERIC 2.0? Probably Not.
ERIC was conceived in 2009. It took three years of hard work by a (bipartisan) team of data, election, and encryption specialists to turn wishful thinking into a working process. No state has ever built a system that approaches ERIC in terms of accuracy, security, and comprehensiveness. There are no partnering options currently in the works. There is zero “momentum around the creation of viable alternatives.”

But don’t take it from me. In the words of Sam Taylor, a spokesman for Texas’ GOP Secretary of State, “We are not currently aware of any system comparable to ERIC.”

One week ago, Texas lawmakers approved Senate Bill 1070. The bill, which now goes to Gov. Abbott for signature, would end the state’s membership in ERIC.

Reminder: State Elections Matter
We elect our state representatives. We elect our Governors. In 35 states, we elect our Secretaries of State, who oversee elections; in the other states, these are appointed by either our Governor, or our state legislature. See you at the polls.

– Juliet Eastland

Sister District Project MA&RI gives the lowdown on why state-level races are so vital to the nation’s health. SDP helps top-notch Democratic candidates win strategically important state elections across the country, and works to expand civic engagement. Originally published here.