Virginia becomes eighth US state to exit voter data-sharing pact
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[August 10, 2023]
By Josephine Walker
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Virginia on Thursday became the eighth
Republican-led U.S. state to leave a non-partisan voting-integrity
partnership that has been undermined by unsubstantiated far-right
charges that it favored Democrats.
Member states of the Electronic Registration Information Center, or
ERIC, partnership share voter registration and identification data to
avoid having people registered to vote in multiple states.
While voter fraud is vanishingly rare in U.S. elections, the nation's
state-by-state elections system raises the risk that people who move
from one state to another may remain registered to vote in two states at
once.
Virginia follows Ohio, Iowa, Florida, Missouri, West Virginia, Louisiana
and Alabama in leaving the partnership.
At its peak, ERIC included 33 states plus the District of Columbia.
There are now only seven Republican-led states among the 25 remaining in
the compact. One of those, Texas, is due to withdraw in October.
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Former U.S. President Donald Trump's false claims that his 2020 election
defeat was the result of widespread fraud have been echoed by many of
his Republican allies. Trump said without evidence in a March post on
his Truth Social site that ERIC "pumps the rolls" for Democrats.
Many Republican-led states have also tightened voting rules in recent
years in what they describe as an effort to prevent fraud.
Virginia's commissioner of elections, Susan Beals, said in a May letter
seen by Reuters that "uncertain costs resulting from the exit of ~20% of
ERIC members" were one of the state's reasons for leaving.
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![](../images/081023PIX/news_p12.jpg)
A voter passes by campaign signs outside
the Arlington County School Board building, on Election Day in
Arlington, Virginia, U.S., November 8, 2022. REUTERS/Tom
Brenner/File Photo
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Beals, an appointee of Republican Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin,
also said ERIC’s mandate has expanded beyond its original intent of
improving the accuracy of voter rolls.
ERIC's executive director, Shane Hamlin, said Virginia’s withdrawal
takes effect Thursday.
"We will continue our work on behalf of our remaining member states
in improving the accuracy of America’s voter rolls and increasing
access to voter registration for all eligible citizens," Hamlin
said.
Alice Clapman, a voting-rights attorney at New York University's
Brennan Center for Justice, said the departures illustrate the
self-reinforcing power of election misinformation, with some states
now citing others' earlier departures as reasons to leave the group.
"It really exposes the hypocrisy of states that are talking the most
about voter fraud," Clapman said. "They're inflating concerns about
voter fraud and are also pulling out of and damaging the best tool
that states have to detect voter fraud."
(Reporting by Josephine Walker; Editing by Scott Malone and Andy
Sullivan)
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