Cleta Mitchell speaks at a conference in Camp Hill, Pa., on April 1, 2022. Influential conservative lawyer who helped former President Donald Trump as he sought to overturn the 2020 election. He is currently working on dismantling the ERIC.
Matt Rourke/AP
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Matt Rourke/AP
Cleta Mitchell speaks at a conference in Camp Hill, Pa., on April 1, 2022. Influential conservative lawyer who helped former President Donald Trump as he sought to overturn the 2020 election. He is currently working on dismantling the ERIC.
Matt Rourke/AP
Why would Republicans give up one of the best tools the government has to catch voter fraud? That simple question is at the heart of a new NPR investigationpublished on Sunday.
This tool is the Electronic Registry Information Center, or ERIC. It was created nearly a decade ago as a way for states to share government data, in an effort to update their voter lists. It allows election officials to better understand when their voters move and die as well as the rare times when they vote twice in different states, which is illegal.
“The little secret is that maybe over 10 years ago, if someone voted in Ohio, Florida, Arizona and Texas, you would never know,” Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, a Republican, said in a statement. an interview with NPR. in February. “With ERIC, we can compare our voter lists with those states.”
Eight Republican states have now withdrawn from the ERIC, including many whose voting officials are credited with praising the partnership a few months ago. Ohio withdrew a month after LaRose spoke to NPR.
J. Christian Adams, a conservative election lawyer, has long been a critic of the way the ERIC works. But he told NPR: “It’s the frenzied enthusiasm to get out of the ERIC … that’s going to make voter fraud thrive.”
So what happened? Here are five takeaways from the NPR investigation:
1. A far-right website that kicked things off
The story begins in January 2022, when a far-right website called Gateway Pundit, which once promoted conspiracy theories, started writing about the ERIC. Until then, the partnership has been seen as a quiet bipartisan success story, with member states spanning the political spectrum.
NPR’s investigative team analyzed hundreds of thousands of social media posts on a number of social media sites frequented by people who refuse to vote. We see how relevant Gateway Pundit started the far-right fixation on the show:
About a week after Gateway Pundit’s first article, Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin, a Republican, announced his state would become the first to withdraw from the ERIC, citing “the concerns of the people, government monitoring organizations and media reporting.”
2. Local “election integrity” groups are a political force
NPR found that although Ardoin did not publicly announce his withdrawal from the ERIC, he did make the announcement to voters who might be the only people at the time who would even care: a group of conservation activists. Local players gathered at Houma, La.
The crowd, gathering for an “electoral integrity town hall,” applauded for 15 seconds when Ardoin announced that he would withdraw the state from the ERIC. The event went public less than 24 hours before Ardoin’s office released its statement on ERIC.
The NPR investigation also found that these types of integrity community electoral groups played a key role in the effort to discredit the national ERIC.
A group called Defend Your Ballot Florida has published a page on its website called “How to Influence Florida Legislators to Suspend Contracts with the ERIC!”
“The STRATEGY is to run a campaign targeting key Florida legislators,” the group wrote in the post, which included a list of state lawmakers and contact information. “Delivery letters, emails, phone calls, and social media activity will all be used to maximize impact.”
Emails obtained by NPR through public records requests show that election officials began answering questions from voters and state lawmakers shortly after these calls were made.
3. A Trump ally orchestrated an election denial machine
Cleta Mitchell is known to many for teaming up with former President Donald Trump to try to overturn the 2020 election. Attorneys were above infamous call where Trump asked Georgia election officials to “find votes.”
Since then, she’s been building out an infrastructure for opting out of voting.
Her podcast, “Who’s Counting,” has become a central hub for stolen election stories, and she’s also started a coalition of grassroots groups around the country called Electoral Integrity Network.
The NPR investigation revealed that Mitchell was at the helm of the effort to dismantle the ERIC.
She even held a secret ERIC summit with red state legislators last summer, according to documents shared with NPR by a nonprofit monitoring group called Documented.
The foreign ministers of the first five states to withdraw from the ERIC attended the event, according to one attendee.
4. Republican primaries are the driving force behind the exodus of ERIC
In Louisiana, when Ardoin made the decision to leave the ERIC, he was preparing to run in the state where Trump had won by nearly 20 percentage points. He had to face many challenge to his right. And the ERIC is becoming a priority for Republican voters.
“We started hearing it during the campaign,” Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen added in an interview with NPR.
Allen ran for office last year, and shortly after Gateway Pundit published his first article, he made a campaign promise to withdraw from ERIC if elected. This January, he passed and Alabama became the second state to withdraw.
The secretaries of state in Missouri, West Virginia and Ohio — all states that have withdrawn — have announced campaigns for the higher office next year, or are expected to run for office.
In Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis is the candidate for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination. DeSantis appointed Cord Byrd as secretary of state last year, and the state’s stance on ERIC changed almost immediately.
NPR’s investigation found that before serving as secretary, Byrd regularly participated in calls for integrity elections organized by Mitchell.
5. Withdrawal of the ERIC will create a “dirty voter book” and incentivize the far right
Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, put it simply in an interview with NPR: The states that have left the ERIC “indirectly say, ‘We’re going to have dirtier voter rolls. .’ “
Brianna Lennon, a Democrat who oversees voting in Boone County, Mo., told NPR that this is bound to happen in her county.
Before Missouri joined the ERIC, the elections office relied on returned mail to find out if a voter had moved to another state.
“That’s what we’re going to have to get back to using,” she said.
Election experts say less accurate voter lists have a direct impact on voters, from longer queues at precincts to mailed ballots and misdirected information. location.
Lennon told NPR she’s worried about what the ERIC story will mean for the 2024 election cycle. Lately, she’s had the feeling that integrity community election groups are getting a lot of attention. than in her state, but she says the secretary of state’s decision is the first major policy decision she sees directly aligned with their goals.
“I’m sure there will be ripples from this particular move, and I’m not sure exactly what the ending will be,” she said. “I don’t think this is an isolated thing.”
