NOVEMBER 21, 2022
Alabama’s Secretary of State-elect Wes Allen has announced that he will withdraw the state from the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a voter-roll management system with politically compromised ties.
“I made a promise that I would withdraw Alabama from ERIC and I am keeping that promise,” Allen said in a statement. “I have informed them, via certified letter, that upon my inauguration on January 16, 2023, Alabama will immediately and permanently cease to transmit any information regarding any citizen in the State of Alabama to their organization and that we will no longer participate in any aspect of the ERIC program.”
As previously reported, ERIC is a voter-roll management organization used by 33 states which ostensibly exists to identify duplicate or deceased registrants (by cross-referencing states’ voter and DMV records) and thereby “clean” state voter rolls. Alabama joined ERIC in 2015 and currently pays about $25,000 a year for its membership.
However, member states may not realize ERIC was started by far-left political activist David Becker, who has dedicated his life to attacking conservatives and advancing left-wing policies. Becker also started the Center for Election Innovation and Research (CEIR), one of two leftist groups that funneled $419 million in grants from Mark Zuckerberg to mostly blue counties of swing states, funding Democratic get-out-the-vote operations from government election offices in 2020. ERIC shares voter roll data – including records of unregistered citizens – with CEIR, which then reportedly creates targeted mailing lists for unregistered but likely Democrat voters and sends them back to the states for voter registration outreach.
Additionally, per government watchdog Verity Vote, ERIC doesn’t actually clean states’ voter rolls, but rather inflates them. Though member states are allegedly required to clean their voter rolls, nothing happens. A March 2022 audit by Michigan’s auditor general found the state’s Bureau of Elections failed to sufficiently clean its voter rolls, though Michigan had joined ERIC in 2019. Likewise, the District of Columbia (another ERIC member) has also been sued for its failure to clean its rolls.
While Alabama’s outgoing secretary of state, John Merrill, has repeatedly signaled his support for ERIC, Allen campaigned on removing the state from the system. Instead of relying on ERIC to clean Alabama’s voter rolls, Allen plans on using change-of-address information from the United States Postal Service, driver’s license records from the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency, and death records from the Alabama Department of Public Health to maintain accurate rolls.
Alabama is the second ERIC member state to withdraw from the pact. Louisiana suspended its participation in January over similar concerns.
Victoria Marshall is a staff writer at The Federalist. Her writing has been featured in the New York Post, National Review, and Townhall. She graduated from Hillsdale College in May 2021 with a major in politics and a minor in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @vemrshll.
