Baseless attacks cripple a vital resource for ensuring election security.

View this email in your browser ([link removed]) | Forward to a friend ([link removed]) | DONATE ([link removed])
[link removed]

From the Desk of Trevor Potter
Dear John,

American elections work because we have tried-and-tested systems in place to make sure votes are cast fairly and counted correctly. Yet, we still hear complaints from those who are dissatisfied with our election system and who inevitably fall prey to conspiracy theories.

[link removed]

These individuals frequently call for “cleaning up the voter lists.” One would think that these skeptics would support a nationwide database, created voluntarily and joined by more than 30 states at its largest size, that ensures accuracy in state voter rolls. Bizarrely, the opposite is happening.

I am referring to politically motivated decisions by eight states to abandon their membership in the Electronic Registration Information Center ([link removed]) , or ERIC. Established in 2012, ERIC is a non-profit, bipartisan consortium that allows its members to identify duplicate and incorrect voter registrations that ought to be removed from voter lists, including those who have moved out of state.

I am one of the many people with election expertise who was literally “in the room” when the Pew Charitable Trusts convened state and federal election officials and technical experts more than 10 years ago to discuss the issue of voter roll accuracy. The goal at the time was to design a secure way for states to exchange voter registration information and promote accuracy. Prior to ERIC’s existence, there was no reliable, secure way for states to share such data.

Our nation’s constantly shifting population makes the task of maintaining accurate voter rolls extremely difficult. For example, people register in new states without informing their previous state that they have left. The ERIC system helps states solve this problem by securely pulling information from a variety of government sources across different states, analyzing that information, and identifying voters who should be removed from the rolls. Those data are then provided to member states.

ERIC remains the most effective system for ensuring the security and accuracy of registered voter lists.

This successful effort has been heralded by election officials on both sides of the political aisle, including Georgia’s Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger: “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. States that prioritize best practices and actual election integrity over politics are going to stay in ERIC and have clearer and more accurate voter rolls than those that choose to leave.”

Decisions to leave ERIC, as detailed in a recent Campaign Legal Center blog post ([link removed]) , are irrational, especially during this current period of extreme partisan caterwauling over the issue of election integrity. The reasoning behind these decisions is directly linked to false attacks on ERIC by election conspiracy theorists.

Not long ago, ERIC claimed 32 states as members, including Republican-led states like Florida, Ohio and Missouri. Sadly, it seems that politics has prevailed over common sense. Take the example of Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, who called ERIC “one of the best fraud-fighting tools that we have,” before pushing the state to withdraw ([link removed]) just one month later. What changed?

Reliable news sources such as NPR ([link removed]) and The New York Times ([link removed]) have in recent weeks done excellent reporting on the smear campaign directed at ERIC by discredited conspiracists and partisan activists.

These efforts have whipped up a frenzy of uninformed opposition among the same portion of the electorate that believes Trump’s lies about the 2020 presidential election. Politicians in too many states – concerned about losing a primary challenge – have yielded to the political pressure, and in doing so have greatly hindered the ability of election officials to maintain accurate voter rolls.

The accusations against ERIC essentially allege a conspiracy to bring in lots of newly registered voters, all based on the fact that voluntary membership in ERIC comes with the obligation to make voter registration information more accessible to eligible citizens. The suggestion is that this makes ERIC a system that favors the Democrats.

I can categorically refute this notion. To begin with, those who gathered to discuss the creation of ERIC, including myself, represented both sides of the aisle and were dedicated to finding a nonpartisan solution to the knotty problem of verifying the accuracy of voter registration rolls. Another overarching goal was structuring ERIC in a way that would appeal to both major political parties.

Furthermore, the suggestion that registering more voters benefits Democrats more than Republicans is itself a myth. In many states (Florida for example), there are more newly registered Republicans than Democrats.

The consistent drumbeat of falsehoods about ERIC is just the latest attempt by partisan actors and conspiracy theorists to undermine confidence in our elections and politicize nonpartisan institutions.

States that have abandoned ERIC will quickly discover how difficult it is to maintain accurate voter rolls without it. Whether or not they choose to say they have made a mistake and restore their membership is an open question. We have seen a bit of a change of heart on the issue of vote-by-mail among some partisans ([link removed]) , despite constant criticism by many of the same forces currently arrayed against ERIC. One can only hope that sanity prevails in this case as well.

ERIC’s ability to process and analyze voter data from different states is unparalleled, but it will not be able to provide this vital service if membership continues to dwindle – fewer states in the consortium means less useful information and higher costs. Election officials who have led their states out of ERIC, or are under partisan pressure to do so, should stop playing politics with election security and instead help build public confidence in our election system by rebutting false attacks.
Sincerely,

Trevor Potter
President, Campaign Legal Center

Donate ([link removed])

============================================================
** Facebook ([link removed])
** Twitter ([link removed])
** Instagram ([link removed])
** LinkedIn ([link removed])
The nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center is dedicated to advancing democracy through law at the federal, state and local levels, fighting for every American’s rights to responsive government and a fair opportunity to participate in and affect the democratic process.

Copyright © 2023 Campaign Legal Center, All rights reserved.
Our mailing address is:
Campaign Legal Center
1101 14th St NW, Ste 400
Washington, DC xxxxxx
USA
** Unsubscribe from this list ([link removed])