About one third of all Americans move within any 4-year period. Millions of people die every year. Keeping track and accurately reflecting these changes to assure voting eligibility is a challenge ERIC has been addressing since it was founded in 2012 by a bipartisan group of chief election officials. Supported by the Pew Charitable Trust and highly ranked by the conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation, seven original founding states quickly expanded to 32, from liberal states like Rhode Island to staunchly conversative ones like Texas and South Carolina to help secure the accuracy of their voter registration bases.
Florida, Missouri, and West Virginia were also members – until March 2023, when the three states announced they were leaving the voting data partnership. In a March press release Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd, an appointee of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, said the voting organization didn’t do enough to secure data privacy or “eliminate ERIC’s partisan tendencies.”
Today ERIC is a public charity non-profit membership organization comprised of 28 states and the District of Columbia. ERIC’s mission is to assist states in improving the accuracy of America’s voter rolls and increasing access to voter registration for all eligible citizens.
ERICstates.org offers more information on the tools that help election officials to accurately reflect voter registration of all eligible citizens.
