Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Just who, or rather what, is ERIC?

voter registration

The Electronic Registration Information Center helps states keep their voter rolls updated while also providing data to help register more voters.

Kason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images

While much of the debate over election administration boils down to the left clamoring for “voting rights” and and the right demanding “election integrity,” there are some solutions that have proven attractive to both sides.

For example, let us introduce you to ERIC.

More formally known as the Electronic Registration Information Center, ERIC is a nonprofit organization that assists its members in maintaining accurate voter rolls by reviewing data provided by the states.

“Funded and governed by member states, ERIC is the most effective tool available to help election officials maintain accurate voter rolls. Using ERIC, members also provide voter registration information to potentially eligible individuals,” said Shane Hamline, the organization’s executive director.


Election officials from seven states – Colorado, Delaware, Maryland, Nevada, Utah, Virginia and Washington – formed ERIC in 2012. New Jersey became the most recent member earlier this year, bringing the current total to 32 states plus Washington, D.C.

And those states now regularly share voter registration lists and data from motor vehicle agencies with ERIC, which also gathers Social Security death data. ERIC combines all the data to determine voters who have moved from one member state to another, voters who moved within a member state, voters with duplicate registrations in one state and people who have died.

Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter

States can then use those reports to properly update their voter registration lists. Members must request at least one of the reports at least once a year but may do so more often.

But it’s not just about removing people from the voter lists. ERIC also provides a report on people who are eligible to vote but remain unregistered, based on voter registration and motor vehicle data. Membership requires states to use that list to send out voter registration information at least once every two years.

Two additional reports further help with list maintenance. One uses U.S. Postal Service data to identify voters who have moved and another lists people who may have voted in more than one state or who may have cast multiple ballots in one state.

According to information provided by ERIC, four of the founding member states were led by Republicans and three by Democrats. As the organization has grown, its membership has remained about evenly divided.

Membership in ERIC may soon expand further. In early July, North Carolina enacted a law providing funding for the state to join ERIC for one year, but there are some restrictions.

States pay $25,000 to join ERIC and then annual dues based on size of the voting age population, ranging from $15,000 to $75,000. That money covers ERIC’s $1 million operating budget.

“We have witnessed repeated attacks on our democracy at the national level. The many states who are members of ERIC are working toward creating easy and equitable access to voter registration, and I am glad to join them,” New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy said earlier this month in announcing his state had become the latest to join ERIC.

Read More

Bridging Hearts in a Divided America

In preparation for U.S. President-elect Donald Trump's second inauguration in Washington, D.C., security measures have been significantly heightened around the U.S. Capitol and its surroundings on January 18, 2025.

(Photo by Celal Gunes/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Bridging Hearts in a Divided America

This story is part of the We the Peopleseries, elevating the voices and visibility of the persons most affected by the decisions of elected officials. In this installment, we share the hopes and concerns of people as Donald Trump returns to the White House.

An Arctic blast is gripping the nation’s capital this Inauguration Day, which coincides with Martin Luther King Jr. Day. A rare occurrence since this federal holiday was instituted in 1983. Temperatures are in the single digits, and Donald J. Trump is taking the oath of office inside the Capitol Rotunda instead of being on the steps of the Capitol, making him less visible to his fans who traveled to Washington D.C. for this momentous occasion. What an emblematic scenario for such a unique political moment in history.

Keep ReadingShow less
King's Birmingham Jail Letter in Our Digital Times

Civil Rights Ldr. Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. speaking into mike after being released fr. prison for leading boycott.

(Photo by Donald Uhrbrock/Getty Images)

King's Birmingham Jail Letter in Our Digital Times

Sixty-two years after Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s pen touches paper in a Birmingham jail cell, I contemplate the walls that still divide us. Walls constructed in concrete to enclose Alabama jails, but in Silicon Valley, designed code, algorithms, and newsfeeds. King's legacy and prophetic words from that jail cell pierce our digital age with renewed urgency.

The words of that infamous letter burned with holy discontent – not just anger at injustice, but a more profound spiritual yearning for a beloved community. Witnessing our social fabric fray in digital spaces, I, too, feel that same holy discontent in my spirit. King wrote to white clergymen who called his methods "unwise and untimely." When I scroll through my social media feeds, I see modern versions of King's "white moderate" – those who prefer the absence of tension to the presence of truth. These are the people who click "like" on posts about racial harmony while scrolling past videos of police brutality. They share MLK quotes about dreams while sleeping through our contemporary nightmares.

Keep ReadingShow less
The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend itself

"Stone of Hope" statue, Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial, Sunday, January 19, 2014.

(Photo by Nikki Kahn/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend itself

“The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s familiar words, inscribed on his monument in Washington, D.C., now raise the question: Is that true?

A moral universe must, by its very definition, span both space and time. Yet where is the justice for the thousands upon thousands of innocent lives lost over the past year — whether from violence between Ukraine and Russia, or toward Israelis or Palestinians, or in West Darfur? Where is the justice for the hundreds of thousands of “disappeared” in Mexico, Syria, Sri Lanka, and other parts of the world? Where is the justice for the billions of people today increasingly bearing the brunt of climate change, suffering from the longstanding polluting practices of other communities or other countries? Is the “arc” bending the wrong way?

Keep ReadingShow less
A Republic, if we can keep it

American Religious and Civil Rights leader Dr Martin Luther King Jr (1929 - 1968) addresses the crowd on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington, Washington DC, August 28, 1963.

(Photo by PhotoQuest/Getty Images)

A Republic, if we can keep it

Part XXXIV: An Open Letter to President Trump from the American People

Dear President Trump,

Keep ReadingShow less