Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC)

Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC)
Basic facts
Location:	Washington, D.C.
Type:	501(c)(3)
Year founded:	2012
Website:	Official website

The Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, nonpartisan organization composed of state election officials. As of July 2025, the ERIC website said the organization "[helps] election officials maintain more accurate voter rolls and detect possible illegal voting."

Background

Chief election officials from Colorado, Delaware, Maryland, Nevada, Utah, Virginia, and Washington founded ERIC in 2012.

According to the ERIC website, "The seven states that founded ERIC believed using state-of-the-art data matching technology, a robust data sharing program built on widely accepted information security standards, and an unprecedented commitment to cooperation would vastly improve their ability to maintain accurate voter rolls. It would also have the added benefit of allowing them to reach out to unregistered, but likely eligible, individuals more efficiently than anyone else."

According to its website, the Pew Charitable Trust "made a significant investment toward building the data-matching exchange, and participating states [became] responsible for funding the system’s maintenance beginning in 2013."

By 2022, 33 states and the District of Columbia had joined ERIC. Click here to view membership as of July 2025.

Purpose and mission

As of July 2025, the ERIC website said, "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."

States that join ERIC agree to share their voter registration data and licensing and identification data from motor vehicle departments every 60 days. ERIC then compiles this data and subsequently releases a series of list maintenance reports:

“

Cross-State Movers Report: Identifies voters who appear to have moved from one ERIC state to another using voter registration data and MVD data. In-State Movers Report: Identifies voters who appear to have moved within the state using voter registration and MVD data. Duplicate Report: Identifies voters with duplicate registrations in the same state using voter registration data. Deceased Report: Identifies voters who have died using voter registration data and Social Security death data known as the Limited Access Death Master File.

”

States are required to request at least one of these reports a year. The ERIC website says its membership agreement "strongly encourages members to establish a regular schedule for requesting these reports.”

States are required to contact voters when they receive a report “indicating that information in an existing voter’s record is deemed to be inaccurate or out-of-date.” States have 90 days to initiate contact with at least 95% of such voters after receiving a report.

ERIC also releases the Eligible but Unregistered Report that identifies eligible but unregistered voters in each member state. Once every two years, member states must mail information about voter registration to these voters in their state by October 1 or 15 days before the state’s registration deadline, whichever is earlier. States are permitted to filter the list and remove individuals that they believe are not eligible.

For more information about all regular reports produced by ERIC, as well as associated requirements, click here.

Members

The following 25 states were members of ERIC as of July 2025. Click here for more information about membership resignations.

• Alaska
• Arizona
• Colorado
• Connecticut
• Delaware
• Georgia
• Hawaii
• Illinois
• Kentucky
• Maine
• Maryland
• Massachusetts
• Michigan
• Minnesota
• Nevada
• New Jersey
• New Mexico
• Oregon
• Pennsylvania
• Rhode Island
• South Carolina
• Utah
• Vermont
• Washington
• Wisconsin

Leadership and governance

ERIC is governed by a board of directors comprised of the chief election official of each member state, or a designee of that official. The board has two permanent standing committees: an executive and a finance committee. These committees are elected on an annual basis by a quorum of the board of directors. A quorum of the board is defined as a majority of members. The board of directors is also responsible for hiring an executive director, and the executive committee is responsible for annually reviewing this individual's compensation and performance. As of July 2025, there are also two technical advisory boards.

New states seeking to join the organization must apply. Upon application of a prospective member, all members of the board of directors are given five days to raise any objections to the admission of the new state. In the absence of any objections, the applicant is automatically granted admission and provided a new seat on the executive board.

At the time of joining ERIC, all member states agree to a membership agreement that outlines the duties and responsibilities entailed in membership, including dues, data and privacy standards, governance requirements, and more. Among other provisions, the membership agreement requires members to periodically contact eligible but currently unregistered voters and “inform them how to register to vote,” as well as requires members to contact existing voters whose record is inaccurate or out-of-date “in order to correct the inaccuracy or obtain information sufficient to inactivate or update the voter’s record.” Members are not required to contact any eligible or possibly eligible voter more than once at the same address, nor to contact "any individual who has affirmatively confirmed their desire not to be contacted for purposes of voter registration or is otherwise ineligible to vote.” Failure to comply with these requirements may result in the removal of the member state from ERIC. The full membership agreement may be found here.

Arguments

Supporters of ERIC have said the organization provides an efficient tool to verify voter eligibility, accurately maintain voter rolls, and reduce instances of election fraud across state lines. Arguments from opponents have included allegations that the organization serves to primarily encourage voter registration, that it does not adequately protect voter information, that it is not a good use of taxpayer money, and that its goals would be better achieved through ad hoc communication between states.

Support

• According to Politico, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows (D) "described the work ERIC does as 'technical and boring' but an important part of the 'backbone' of American elections."

• Then-Alabama Secretary of State John Merrill (R) said in 2022, "ERIC is the best tool that currently exists to identify voter participation in multiple states, identify dual registration in multiple states, and enhance voter rolls."

• Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) said in 2023, "States claim they want to combat illegal voting & clean voter rolls — but then leave the best & only group capable of detecting double voting across state lines. ... Reacting to disinformation they’ve hurt their own state & others while undermining voter confidence."

Opposition

• Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen (R) said in 2023, "Providing the private information of Alabama citizens, including underage minors, to an out of state organization is troubling to me and to people that I heard from as I traveled the state for the last 20 months."

• Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd (R) said in 2023, "I have an obligation to protect the personal information of Florida’s citizens, which the ERIC agreement requires us to share. Florida has tried to back reforms to increase protections, but these protections were refused. Therefore, we have lost confidence in ERIC."

• Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose (R) said in 2023, "I cannot justify the use of Ohio’s tax dollars for an organization that seems intent on rejecting meaningful accountability, publicly maligning my motives, and waging a relentless campaign of misinformation about this effort."

Noteworthy events

State legislative activity (2024)

As of July 2024, legislators in at least four states considered bills related to ERIC during 2024 legislative sessions.

On March 15, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) vetoed SB 606 which would have required the state to apply to join ERIC. Virginia was a founding member of ERIC in 2012 but resigned in 2023. In his veto message, Gov. Youngkin said, “Since leaving ERIC, Virginia established data-sharing agreements with numerous states incurring no additional costs.” The bill passed the Virginia House of Delegates and Senate along partisan lines, with all Democrats voting "Yea" and all Republicans voting "No."

On July 5, Hawaii Gov. Josh Green (D) signed SB 2240, requiring the state’s Office of Elections to apply to join the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC). The bill passed the Hawaii House of Representatives and Senate unanimously on April 24. Hawaii would become the first state to join ERIC since the series of resignations, barring action by another state before the deadline to apply imposed by the bill, or a rejection of Hawaii’s application by ERIC. 

As of July 12, bills in two other states—California and New York—that would require application to ERIC have passed one chamber of their respective state's legislatures.

State resignations from ERIC (2022-2023)

Beginning in 2022, a number of states resigned their membership in ERIC. Election officials in these states named concerns about protection of personal data, partisanship, and strategic disagreements as contributing factors to their respective resignations.

On July 13, 2022, Louisiana became the first state to officially resign its membership in ERIC, after previously suspending its participation in January 2022. On May 26, 2023, Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs (D) vetoed SB1135 which would have likely required the state to withdraw from ERIC. As of July 2025, the following states had withdrawn from ERIC:

• Louisiana (Effective November 9, 2022)
• Alabama (Effective April 18, 2023)
• Florida (Effective June 3, 2023)
• Missouri (Effective June 3, 2023)
• West Virginia (Effective June 3, 2023)
• Iowa (Effective June 16, 2023)
• Ohio (Effective June 16, 2023)
• Virginia (Effective August 9, 2023)
• Texas (Effective October 19, 2023)

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  Election policy on Ballotpedia

• Election laws and legislation in the United States
• Voting policies in the United States
• Ballotpedia's The Ballot Bulletin

External links

• Electronic Registration Information Center official website
• Electronic Registration Information Center on Twitter