JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — What does it mean for your vote now that Florida has withdrawn its participation in a network that analyzes voter data? First Coast News brought this question to the Duval County supervisor of elections.
The Electronic Registration Information Center, also known as ERIC, is a nonprofit that helps states keep their voter registration lists up to date by analyzing data. Its goal is to prevent voter fraud such as people voting in multiple states or voting for someone who died.
Duval County Supervisor of Elections Mike Hogan says his office will have to go back to the way they maintained voter registration lists before Florida joined ERIC. He says list maintenance is a challenge for supervisor of elections offices.
"The idea is that it'll help us find double voters, people that are voting in one state and also in another or people that have died," Hogan said about ERIC. "People, when they move, they don't tell us. We're gonna continue to send mail to that individual and if it doesn't come back to us 'return to sender,' we don't know that they're not there. So it's a lot of waste of time and taxpayers' dollars. It also can create a fertile ground for fraud because I'm maybe sending a mail ballot to that person. So yes, the more information we have nationwide, I think it makes it a little stronger as it relates to the accuracy of the roll."
National headlines state ERIC has become the target of conspiracy theories over voter fraud. When Florida joined ERIC in 2019, Governor Ron DeSantis said it would ensure voter rolls were up-to-date and increase voter participation. Florida's office of election crimes and security stated in a report from less than two months ago they used ERIC to identify over one thousand voters who appeared to have voted in multiple states.
Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd says in a statement Florida had been trying to "secure data and eliminate ERIC’s partisan tendencies, all of which were rejected." ERIC’s executive director writes in an open letter he says is to address misinformation that "ERIC is never connected to any state’s voter registration system."
There are over 14 million registered voters in Florida, according to the state office of election crimes and security. What does Florida's withdrawal from ERIC mean for your supervisor of elections office?
"Prior to 2020, we did list maintenance on our own," Hogan said. "We'll just go back to what we were doing in 2020."
Florida, West Virginia and Missouri all withdrew from ERIC at the same time. Twenty-eight states and Washington, D.C. are still a part of ERIC.