How right-wing activists are pushing states to dismantle voter integrity safeguards

With the removal of ERIC, battleground states face a potential flood of biased voter roll purges ahead of the 2024 election.

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As the 2024 election approaches, a sustained right-wing campaign is reshaping the management of voter rolls in several key battleground states. At the heart of the controversy is the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a multistate, bipartisan data-sharing partnership created to ensure accurate voter lists by tracking relevant changes like deaths, address updates, and interstate moves. However, nine states, many with upcoming high-stakes elections, have now severed ties with ERIC, bowing to a wave of misinformation and pressure from election denialists.

ERIC was established in 2012 to address the longstanding challenge of keeping voter rolls accurate across a highly mobile population. Through unique access to confidential databases, such as motor vehicle department records, ERIC enabled states to share and verify data, maintaining clean, up-to-date voter rolls. By 2022, the system was adopted by more than 30 states, making it a critical tool in the election infrastructure. However, right-wing groups have targeted ERIC in recent years, accusing the organization of partisan bias—claims that have been debunked but have gained significant political traction.

A key player in the anti-ERIC movement is The Gateway Pundit, a far-right media outlet with a long history of disinformation. In January 2022, the outlet falsely claimed that ERIC was funded by billionaire George Soros and was a front for promoting Democratic votes. Despite multiple refutations, this misinformation campaign has taken hold, with Louisiana being the first state to leave ERIC in early 2022. Since then, eight other states have followed, including Virginia, Florida, and Ohio. The right-wing media frenzy has provided a foothold for election denialists and voter suppression advocates to influence state officials to abandon ERIC, often contradicting their previous support.

Documents from watchdog organization American Oversight reveal a highly coordinated effort behind these state departures. The group uncovered a trove of emails indicating that prominent election denialists, including those responsible for sowing mistrust in U.S. elections post-2020, played a key role in pressuring state officials. “The same people involved in sowing distrust in U.S. elections were also working behind the scenes to influence the multistate exodus from ERIC,” said Amanda Teuscher, director of communications at American Oversight. Public records obtained by the watchdog show how officials who once praised ERIC for its reliability and effectiveness succumbed to mounting pressure from far-right groups.

The move away from ERIC has left many states scrambling to replicate its voter roll maintenance functions. For instance, Virginia’s Department of Elections has been engaged in a high-stakes effort to build an in-house ERIC replacement, requiring an expanded staff and project funding to cover the vast “scope and level of effort” necessary to maintain the accuracy of the state’s voter rolls. But without ERIC’s streamlined, data-sharing infrastructure, these replacement efforts face inherent limitations, which could lead to inaccuracies and administrative inefficiencies. Texas, another ERIC exit state, has implemented what it calls an alternative system but has not publicly detailed its processes or accuracy.

In the absence of ERIC, other software programs have emerged, many with connections to partisan and right-wing interests, raising new concerns about their reliability and fairness. One high-profile replacement, EagleAI NETwork, relies on data sources as varied as “Google scrapes,” business records, and tax data to flag supposed “suspicious” registrations. With funding from dark-money conservative groups, EagleAI aims to provide states with ERIC-like functions, though elections officials have warned of its errors and questionable methodologies. “EagleAI data offers zero additional value to Georgia’s existing list maintenance procedures.… EagleAI presentations … seem to steer counties towards improper list maintenance activities,” Blake Evans, Georgia’s election director, told NBC.

American Oversight found that many of these new voter roll tools have facilitated increased voter roll challenges, particularly targeting marginalized communities. CNN reported that IV3, another right-wing data program, enables citizens to submit voter challenges based on questionable information, resulting in over half a million challenges thus far. These challenges have included vulnerable groups, such as individuals in homeless shelters and assisted-living facilities, reflecting a wider trend of politically motivated voter suppression efforts.

The push to dismantle ERIC aligns with broader, coordinated right-wing voter suppression tactics. In addition to pushing states to sever ties with ERIC, conservative groups have been lobbying for restrictive voter ID laws, challenging mail-in ballots, and reducing early voting options. These efforts, aimed at restricting access to the ballot box, target groups more likely to vote Democrat, including college students, people of color, and low-income citizens. The Republican National Committee (RNC), in fact, has played a leading role in supporting such voter suppression efforts, providing a foundation for a larger anti-democratic strategy.

Compounding this issue, former President Donald Trump has personally amplified calls for Republican-controlled states to abandon ERIC, using his influence to urge widespread discreditation of the program. Trump’s calls resonate within the ongoing election denialist narrative, further spreading doubts about the integrity of democratic institutions. In the face of these challenges, officials like Amanda Teuscher from American Oversight underscore the political motivation behind such tactics: “The misinformation campaign around ERIC has foment[ed] distrust.… That distrust can be used to push for more restrictions that will make it harder for people to vote—especially people of color, college students, or marginalized groups.”

As battleground states face potential voter roll inaccuracies and manipulative purges, the consequences of ERIC’s absence will be felt in November. In key states like Texas and Virginia, officials are left working to fill the gap, while others like Georgia and Alabama have entered into piecemeal partnerships to compare rolls for accuracy, despite the limitations of these fragmented systems. The broader disenfranchisement resulting from ERIC’s absence affects those whose votes are most often pivotal in elections, further undermining confidence in electoral processes.

Beyond the administrative strain on state election offices, the ERIC exodus risks eroding public trust in elections. As Teuscher pointed out, the groundwork for distrust in electoral processes lays the foundation for further restrictive voting measures and even pre-emptive challenges to legitimate election outcomes. The damage to democratic integrity remains to be fully seen, but the signs point to a systematic suppression effort that will likely bear significant consequences.

Whether ERIC can ultimately be reinstated in states that have abandoned it remains uncertain. For now, as American Oversight and other advocates stress, it’s imperative that the public remain informed and vigilant against attempts to manipulate voter access in the run-up to the 2024 elections.

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