For years, Republicans echoing President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 presidential election was ridden with voter fraud have pushed for states to leave a bipartisan group that lets officials share data to keep voter rolls accurate. Nine have, but none since October 2023.
A new bill advanced Tuesday by House Republicans in a Georgia committee could make Georgia the 10th.
Twenty-four states and Washington, D.C., are currently members of the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC, which Republicans have questioned over its funding and motives. Officials use state and federal data from the group to identify and remove from voting rolls people who have died, moved to other states or registered somewhere else.
Rep. Martin Momtahan, the Dallas Republican who introduced the bill, said states leaving the group, including many that border Georgia, have made the data and its network “totally ineffective.”
But Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has credited the system for helping him maintain accurate voter data, which officials say provides more robust information than states can gather on their own.
“ERIC is, in my opinion, the most secure and efficient mass voter list maintenance tool that is available,” Blake Evans, who works for Raffensperger and is the chair of ERIC’s executive committee, said during a Tuesday hearing on the bill.