In January 2022, at an event hosted by one of the scores of local “election integrity” groups inspired by Donald Trump’s fraudulent assertion that voter fraud had cost him the 2020 election, Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin made a big announcement: His state was leaving ERIC.
asserted
state → host → ERIC
This was puzzling because, amid all the Republican pearl-clutching over election integrity, ERIC was the single organization best equipped to help states ensure exactly that.
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states → equip → that
And suddenly MAGA Republicans wanted nothing to do with it.
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Republicans → want → it
It’s a nonpartisan, nonprofit coalition established in 2012 by elections officials from seven states—then four red, three blue—who joined forces to bulletproof their voting processes.
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who → ’ → processes
This, of course, was before the right twisted the term “election integrity,” much as they’d previously usurped the word “patriot,” as a partisan identifier somewhat opposite from its original meaning.
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they → twist → meaning
And what does ERIC do?
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ERIC → do → what
Well, member states submit voter registration and vehicle registration data through secure channels, allowing for cross-referencing.
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states → submit → referencing
That’s valuable because people frequently move within and among states.
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people → ’ → states
Young people become eligible.
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people → become → ?
Noncitizens become citizens.
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Noncitizens → become → ?
Former felons have rights restored.
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rights → have → ?
Newly incarcerated people lose them.
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people → incarcerate → them
And lots of people die.
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lots → die → people
ERIC helps its members track voter moves and purge their lists of duplicate registrations (Michael Mechanic vs. Mike Mechanic) and dead people (hopefully neither of those).
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members → help → those
It identifies people who are eligible yet unregistered.
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who → identify → people
And after a national election, if requested, ERIC will produce reports flagging any signs of potential illegal voting—of a person casting ballots in two or more states or casting more than one ballot in one state, or voting on behalf of a recently dead relative, for example.
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person → request → example
“These are all laudable, uncontroversial goals that have made our voter registration rolls more accurate and our elections more accessible and secure,” Jonathan Diaz, an executive with the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, wrote in an article extolling ERIC’s virtues.
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Diaz → make → virtues
ERIC attracted more new members every year.
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ERIC → attract → members
By the time of Ardoin’s announcement, it had 31 member states, plus DC, and was respected on both sides of the aisle as a powerful tool to help keep voter rolls in shape, improve access, and flag potential fraud.
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it → have → fraud
John Merrill, Alabama’s secretary of state from 2015 to 2023, recalls that ERIC had more Republican-run than Democratic-run states at the time.
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ERIC → recall → time
“Its integrity has been intact from its creation,” he told me.
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he → tell → me
And yet his state was next to fall.
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state → fall → ?
Merrill’s predecessor, Wes Allen, withdrew Alabama from ERIC as his first official act.
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predecessor → withdraw → act
(“Providing the private information of Alabama citizens, including underage minors, to an out of state organization is troubling to me,” he stated in his announcement.)
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he → provide → announcement
Allen was followed by a parade of red-state officials, some echoing baseless conspiracy theories, such as a bogus claim that ERIC got funding from George Soros.
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ERIC → follow → Soros
David Becker, a nonvoting board member who’d helped establish ERIC but is no longer involved, also came under attack.
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who → help → attack
“Conspiracy theorists targeted ERIC.
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theorists → target → ERIC
Apparently, it was working too well for them,” Becker, also the founder and director of the “fiercely nonpartisan” Center for Election Innovation and Research, recalled at a CEIR press briefing on Friday.
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Becker → work → Friday
“They spread lies about me,” he said, and “They spread lies about ERIC’s funding, what ERIC does, how ERIC works.
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ERIC → spread → what
We continue to see that.”
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We → continue → that
Trump himself piled on: “All Republican Governors should immediately pull out of ERIC, the terrible Voter Registration System that ‘pumps the rolls’ for Democrats and does nothing to clean them up,” he wrote on Truth Social in March 2023, showcasing his complete ignorance of ERIC’s role.
Red-state officials played along.
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officials → pile → role
After Alabama came Florida, Missouri, and West Virginia, then Iowa, Ohio, Virginia, and Texas.
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Iowa → come → Alabama
By 2024, nearly a third of the member states had bailed, though a handful of reliably conservative states (Alaska, Kentucky, South Carolina, and Utah) remain.
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handful → bail → states
Officials from the departing states “succumbed to that disinformation, even as they admitted that they knew it was false, and within days of leaving, were proudly trumpeting voter fraud investigations and prosecutions they did that came solely from ERIC,” Becker said.
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Becker → depart → ERIC
“We saw this in several states.”
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We → see → states
“I think that the people who decided that they did not want to be a part of ERIC did so for political reasons,” Merrill told me.
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Merrill → think → me
“I don’t know anybody that had a factual base for removing their state because of an exposed vulnerability, inconsistency, or irregularity that they felt was a problem for ERIC’s integrity—and if they did, they never shared that publicly.
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they → know → that
And I have a problem with that.”
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I → have → that
In 2022, the year Louisiana bailed, ERIC flagged some 2.4 million interstate moves, 7.3 million intrastate moves, 203,210 duplicate listings, and 65,437 dead voters.
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ERIC → bail → moves
Four years later, post-exodus, those numbers were much reduced: roughly 604,000 interstate, 881,00o intrastate, 61,000 duplicates, and 17,000 dead.
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numbers → reduce → ?
…and 24 more, not listed.
