Election officials in Florida, Missouri and West Virginia say they are withdrawing from a bipartisan, multistate effort aimed at ensuring the accuracy of voter rolls that has found itself in the crosshairs of conspiracy theories fueled by Donald Trump’s false claims about the 2020 presidential election
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, in a letter to member states Monday, also threatened to withdraw. That came just weeks after the Republican defended the system, telling reporters it was “one of the best fraud-fighting tools that we have.”
Yet the effort to improve election integrity and thwart voter fraud — which Republican lawmakers and local officials commonly cite as priorities — has become a target of suspicion after a series of online posts early last year questioning its funding and purpose. One conspiracy involves, who has long been a target of conspiracy theories, and claims that he funded the voter data-sharing system.
Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft said in an interview that he decided to leave after concluding that changes he had been advocating for would not be made and that it was unlikely more states surrounding his would join the effort. Among the changes he sought was dropping a requirement for member states to send mailings to eligible but unregistered voters and removing what he described as partisan influences from the program.
With no national voter registration clearinghouse, ERIC is the only data-sharing program among states. It was started in 2012 by seven states and was bipartisan from the beginning, with four of the founding states led by Republicans. After the states officially depart, participation will drop to 28 states and the District of Columbia.
Brad Ashwell, Florida director of the advocacy group All Voting is Local, said the governor was “caving to the interests of conspiracy theorists” with the decision to leave ERIC. In response to the survey, Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate, a Republican, called ERIC an “effective tool for ensuring the integrity” of his state's voter rolls. Gabriel Sterling, a top official in the Georgia secretary of state’s office, said he recently appealed to representatives from three other Republican-led states to join the system.
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