American Oversight Releases Report on Anti-ERIC Push and Its Threat to 2024 Election

Today, nonprofit watchdog organization American Oversight released a report, “The Campaign to Dismantle ERIC,” detailing how many of the same people who tried to overturn the 2020 election worked behind the scenes to push nine Republican-led states to abandon the bipartisan Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC, and how that exodus threatens next year’s election.

Statement from American Oversight Deputy Executive Director Chioma Chukwu:

“The effort to dismantle a bipartisan, secure, and well-functioning system of voter registration data-sharing is a part of a broader attempt to undermine faith in our democracy and our country’s elections,” Chukwu said. “These documents show how the election denial movement exerted undue influence over state leaders, effectively paving the way for Trump’s allies to sow chaos in the 2024 election. As another election year approaches, it is vital for the American people to see how the same forces that sought to overturn 2020 are still working to undermine our democracy.”

“The Campaign to Dismantle ERIC” draws upon thousands of pages of public records American Oversight obtained through requests and litigation. It outlines how ERIC went from a non-controversial organization that quietly helped states securely maintain accurate voter rolls to a target of the election denial movement. 

The documents in the report reveal how state officials privately acknowledged the importance of ERIC before withdrawing and how those states left the system without any adequate replacements in place. Since then, these states have scrambled to find viable alternatives — none of which are as secure or effective as ERIC in maintaining up-to-date voter rolls. 

The report also shows how the exodus opened the door for Trump allies like Cleta Mitchell and others to promote their own alternatives that would make it easier for voter fraud activists to challenge the voting rights of other citizens and make states more vulnerable to false claims of election fraud in 2024.

Key findings:

• The same people who tried to overturn the 2020 election worked behind the scenes to influence the ERIC exodus by promoting false claims and conspiracy theories, priming states for post-election chaos that could be used to deny election results in 2024.
  • Documents obtained by American Oversight suggest that the Gateway Pundit’s conspiracy-fueled series about ERIC played a significant role in influencing Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin’s decision to withdraw from the consortium. Records also show that Ardoin was in touch with prominent election deniers around the same time he made the decision to withdraw.
  • American Oversight’s records show that Cleta Mitchell and members of her Election Integrity Network communicated with state election officials about ERIC and potential replacements in the months before and after states withdrew.

• States have scrambled to find viable replacements — none of which provide ERIC’s security, reliability, or effectiveness. 
  • American Oversight uncovered documents demonstrating how states that entered into interstate data-sharing agreements — which lacked apparent mechanisms to ensure security or for quality control — failed to seek key information to inform those agreements until well after withdrawing from ERIC. 
  • Emails obtained by American Oversight show that the servers of one potential ERIC replacement, EagleAI, became inoperative in October 2023 “possibly due to an attack on the Windows server software.” 

• Election denial activists are now pushing their own ERIC alternatives that would make it easier to challenge the voting rights of thousands.
  • Records produced to American Oversight reveal that election deniers, including Cleta Mitchell, have pitched unproven and less secure ERIC replacements, such as EagleAI, which lack the critical data to accurately verify voter information.