The Right-wing Pressure Campaign That Led States to Abandon Crucial Voter-Roll Maintenance Organization

Records obtained by American Oversight provide new details about the motivations behind state government officials withdrawing from the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a bipartisan data-sharing consortium used to keep voter rolls up to date. 

The documents, outlined in American Oversight’s new report “The Campaign to Dismantle ERIC,” provide a behind-the-scenes look at how a conspiracy-theory-filled article on a fringe conservative website ignited an anti-ERIC campaign, with the secretary of state of Louisiana announcing that his state would withdraw just days after its publication.

Additionally, the records reveal the speciousness of officials’ public explanations for leaving ERIC. Records show not only that election deniers and voter-fraud alarmists pressured states to leave, but that technocrats and political appointees alike recognized the benefits of ERIC and the risks of the misinformation surrounding it.

Until last year, ERIC was a non-controversial nonprofit that quietly helped states clean up their voter rolls by securely comparing voter data. But a political firestorm fanned by a coordinated effort on the part of anti-democratic activists led eight other states to exit the same partnership some of their leaders had previously touted.

American Oversight submitted public records requests to officials in more than a dozen states, and in June 2023 sued the secretaries of state of Louisiana and Ohio to compel the release of documents.

Louisiana’s Withdrawal 

The records we obtained suggest a strong connection between Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin’s decision to leave ERIC and a series of articles riddled with inaccuracies that was published in January 2022 by the fringe far-right website Gateway Pundit. 

Gateway Pundit founder Jim Hoft, who wrote the series, has been an enthusiastic purveyor of false claims about the 2020 presidential election. Holt’s articles relied heavily on voter-fraud alarmist J. Christian Adams, a conservative elections attorney who claims to be the first person to have publicly criticized ERIC. ERIC has debunked the Gateway Pundit’s false allegations, as have several media outlets.

On Jan. 27, 2022, Ardoin announced that he would be suspending his state’s ERIC membership, referencing “concerns raised by citizens, government watchdog organizations and media reports.” Although Ardoin’s office told Votebeat that the decision had “nothing to do with” the Gateway Pundit articles, its timing — just one week after the initial article’s publication and the ensuing spike in mentions on far-right social media — raised serious questions.

On Jan. 21 — the day after the first article — an official in the secretary’s office forwarded Ardoin a statement from ERIC’s executive director, Shane Hamlin, that addressed falsehoods in the article. That evening, Ardoin replied to top staff in his office: “I’m likely going to suspend our membership until we can make sure our data isn’t being used or supplie[d] to other organizations,” he wrote, indicating he was aware of both the article and ERIC’s refutation.

The same evening, Ardoin texted Adams, asking for a call to discuss ERIC. Adams responded that he would be available over the next three days. 

Other records obtained by American Oversight reveal that around that time, Ardoin was also in touch with prominent election deniers, including Phil Waldron and Draza Smith — whom he invited to speak at a meeting of the Louisiana Voting Commission — and Trump-allied attorney Cleta Mitchell, whose network of “election integrity” activists became integral to the anti-ERIC campaign. 

Since Louisiana’s withdrawal from ERIC, Ardoin has continued to insist he made the decision based on privacy concerns, but has failed to clarify what those concerns are or to provide any other justification. In March 2023, for example, Ardoin said he had “a responsibility to protect my constituents’ personal data, and being a part of ERIC was no longer in the best interest of our citizens.” Ardoin’s office declined interviews on the topic with NPR and Politico, and offered incomplete answers to questions from Votebeat. When asked publicly by American Oversight in May 2023 to explain what concerns prompted his state to leave ERIC, Ardoin replied, “No comment.”

Other State’s Withdrawals

Louisiana’s withdrawal in 2022 set the stage for a fast-growing anti-ERIC campaign, resulting in a wave of states exiting in early 2023. Alabama’s new secretary of state, Wes Allen, campaigned on a pledge to withdraw the state from ERIC and followed through by pulling Alabama out of the group immediately upon assuming office in January 2023.

In March of 2023, Republican-led states began to withdraw from ERIC in a more coordinated fashion. On March 6, Florida, West Virginia, and Missouri all announced decisions to leave, citing one another’s same-day withdrawals. Less than two weeks later, Ohio and Iowa joined the exodus, despite — just the month before — both states’ secretaries of state having praised ERIC. 

Once a critical mass of states had backed out of ERIC, some Republican voting officials began relying on the retreat itself as a reason to leave the group. In May, Virginia — which in 2012 under a Republican governor had been one of the founding members of the organization — became the eighth state to leave ERIC, with the state’s commissioner of elections, Susan Beals, citing the “increasing and uncertain costs resulting from the exit of ~20% of ERIC members.” And in July, Texas’ secretary of state submitted notice that Texas would be withdrawing from ERIC by mid-October to comply with new state legislation. A spokesperson told the Texas Tribune, “As fewer states are participating, the costs are increasing and the amount of data we’re going to receive will be reduced.”

In addition to false claims about ERIC’s security and its funding, a major throughline in the Gateway Pundit series and in activists’ communications with state officials was opposition to ERIC’s outreach to eligible but unregistered voters. Election deniers criticized this effort to increase access to the ballot, and state leaders often echoed that objection and the numerous false claims in their public explanations for leaving ERIC. 

Meanwhile, receptive offices met with far-right election deniers as the anti-ERIC campaign gained momentum in 2022 and early 2023, with some offices even communicating with activists within days or weeks of announced withdrawals. For instance:

• In March 2023, just four days after Florida withdrew, records show right-wing legal group the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), headed by Adams, emailed the Florida Secretary of State to offer “voter list maintenance leads like what may have been provided by [ERIC].” PILF has a long history of publishing misleading reports on voter fraud that disintegrate under scrutiny.
• Public records show that at the same time, the West Virginia secretary of state’s office had been in touch with the Virginia Election Integrity Working Group, which was working “to put pressure on our State Board of Elections to end Virginia’s membership agreement with ERIC,” citing concerns about the sharing of personal information with outside groups. 
• In February 2023, activist Heather Honey emailed the secretary’s office to advocate for “Return[ing] Control and Management of State Data Back to the States.” Honey offered to research a transition plan and shared data as well as reports containing baseless accusations. 

But records from behind the scenes in Missouri, Ohio, and Texas highlight the speciousness of many officials’ public reasons for abandoning ERIC, with several top election administrators expressing concern. 

• Emails American Oversight obtained from January 2022 show Trish Vincent, Secretary Ashcroft’s chief of staff, characterized the first of the Gateway Pundit’s articles about ERIC as “horrible and misleading.” 
• In Texas, an assistant secretary of state emailed state Rep. Matt Shaheen’s chief of staff in January 2023 to respond to a question about ERIC, debunking the Gateway Pundit’s misinformation and explaining the benefits ERIC membership provided Texas. 
• Two months later, the day Ohio withdrew, then-state Director of Elections Amanda Grandjean wrote to ERIC Executive Director Shane Hamlin, “As you know, I really worked as hard as I possibly could to avoid this.” 

Read more about what our investigation into the ERIC withdrawals has uncovered here, and download our full report here.