When Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft and officials in a handful of other Republican-leaning states left a national system designed to improve the accuracy of voting rolls last week, the likely GOP candidate for governor outlined his grievances. Ashcroft alleged the Electronic Information Registration Information Center, commonly called ERIC, had refused to require member states to participate in multi-state efforts to address voter fraud and had focused on adding names to voter rolls by requiring solicitations to individuals who had already had the opportunity to register, among other complaints. He has faced criticism from Democrats and election experts for his decision. But what comes after ERIC is less clear. In an interview with The Star, Ashcroft downplayed the possibility that he or election officials from the other breakaway states – which include Louisiana, Alabama, Florida and West Virginia – would move quickly to form an alternative program. He instead spoke broadly about how Missouri and other states are likely to focus on their own efforts while remaining in communication….
Some election experts question how effective Missouri’s solo and one-on-one efforts will be. Rick Hasen, a professor and director of the Safeguarding Democracy Project at the UCLA School of Law, said he expects more double voting will occur in ERIC’s absence. Under ERIC, it is much easier for states to identify individuals registered in two states, Hasen said. The system also includes safeguards to ensure different people with the same name are not removed from voter rolls. “Without ERIC, either more voters are going to face disenfranchisement (and states will face new lawsuits if that risk is there) or more voters are going to vote in more than one state in an election,” Hasen said in an email. “There is no easy substitute. Having states ‘talk to each other’ without a formal mechanism with safeguards is unlikely to work.”