In January 2022, TGP published a 3-part series about the ERIC non-profit. The Electronic Registration Information Center was supposedly helping 31 states clean their voter rolls. The more data, documents, videos, and transcripts that TGP reviewed, the more ERIC smelled like a cloaked Democrat operation. So we published what we learned about ERIC.In the weeks and months after our series, the left-wing media conducted an unbelievable campaign to defend ERIC. They, of course, attempted to discredit TGP and intimidate State officials thinking of leaving ERIC.Eventually, 9 of the 31 member States left the ERIC non-profit for several reasons. Virginia rejoined ERIC in 2026 after a Democrat won the governor’s office. Why was the left-wing media ferociously supporting this tiny non-profit with only 3 employees?Well, it gave the left access to states’ voter rolls and their coveted MVD/DMV (Motor Vehicle Dept / Dept. of Motor Vehicles) data too! About a year later, Verity Vote confirmed that ERIC data was, in fact, being shared with the left-wing activist group CEIR and David Becker.The ERIC voter registration non-profit says their “sole mission is assisting states to improve the accuracy of voter rolls and increase access to voter registration.” Most now know the first part is just not true – at all.ERIC provides five types of reports (lists) to its members. The members must ask ERIC for most of these reports, as frequently as monthly. But ERIC operates like a secret black box – a State makes a report request, and days later their report is ready for download. That election jurisdiction has little idea how these reports were created or if they contain any bias.Under the federal 1993 NVRA law, voter “list maintenance” must be provided to the public. Yet, every ERIC member State refuses public access to these reports.DHS concerns over DPPA violations by ERIC and CEIR.We recently reported that DHS asked the DOJ to investigate the voter registration group ERIC’s use of Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) data.The DHS Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) department is the one conducting most election and voter-data investigations. It’s unclear if HSI is behind these DPPA violation concerns. Below are some issues mentioned in the DHS letter to the Department of Justice.Concerns over State DMV data given to a tiny private non-profit (ERIC).Is EBU outreach a legitimate part of election administration functions?Many people on these EBU lists already declined Voter Registration.When ERIC shared DMV data downstream, were those vendors DPPA compliant?When DMV data was given to CEIR (David Becker), was this a DPPA-permitted purpose?CEIR claims DMV data access under the research exception. But it can’t be used to contact people.States provide DMV records every 60 days. Some ERIC reports only available 1-2 times per year.DMV databases are one of the most comprehensive lists of adults residing in any State. Subtracting people already on the voter rolls – from the people in the DMV database – provides a list of adults not yet registered to vote. These are called EBU‘s, “Eligible But Unregistered” voters.In one way or another, almost every person age 16 and above interacts with their State’s DMV/MVD (MVD stands for Motor Vehicle Division) office. American citizens need ID’s, vehicle registrations, plates, Driver Licenses, Learner Permits, and more.The Electronic Registration Information Center, known as ERIC, is the only election organization that can access DMV records. States that join must give ERIC access to their voter rolls and DMV data every 60 days. TGP has written extensively about this 3-employee non-profit.Many feel ERIC’s sole access to DMV data is unfair, and likely illegal.In 1994, the federal Driver’s Privacy Protection Act (DPPA) was created. It was updated in 1999 to further protect our privacy when at DMV offices. It has strict guidelines for collecting, disclosing, and using personal DMV information.There are 14 provisions listed in the DPPA that allow driver information to be shared without that person’s permission. This includes insurance activities, notices for towing or impounds, emissions and recalls, law enforcement activities, and so on.There is some flexibility. For instance, a state can pass its own law allowing for additional reasons to use DMV data. But those reasons must relate to driving or safety, not elections. States can’t authorize something contrary to the DPPA. They shouldn’t allow only one election group access to it.The DPPA law DOES NOT allow the use of DMV data for voter registration. ERIC’s membership agreements, or any State law mandating the use of ERIC, do not get to override the federal DPPA laws.The agreement with each State mandates that ERIC will create a list of EBU’s (Eligible but Unregistered), and that the State must contact these people for voter registration. These outreach programs can cost hundreds of thousands of $$. Get Out The Vote (GOTV) campaigns are not the role of election offices! So why this push by ERIC?Back in 2010, roughly 75% of our adult population was registered to vote. This is when the Pew Charitable Trusts created its “Voter Modernization Project”. It targeted the registration of these remaining 25% because most of them fit profiles of Democrat voters (low income, young, race-based).On behalf of Pew, sketchy leftist David Becker pitched their two-part project to each State. The first part, the mission-critical part, was for States to switch from paper applications to “online voter registration”. This gave outside leftist groups, located anywhere, access to their Voter Registration systems.The 2nd part was for the State to join ERIC. It was pitched as a tool to clean voter rolls. In fact, when presenting to California in 2011, David Becker admits on video to a County Clerk in the audience that the overall initiative will disproportionately find and register more Democrat voters.States pay $89k annually for ERIC memberships. Small states pay less; larger states pay more ($48k-$183k). Signatures on founding documents show ERIC was drawn up by PEW lawyers, not by bipartisan election officials.ERIC provides four reports that can help clean voter rolls (dead, moved, etc.). ERIC creates the EBU lists and regularly sends them to each State. But members must request these cleaning-type reports, available monthly. Seems backward, huh?The member States have refused to provide any transparency on lists provided by ERIC. They say it violates their contract with ERIC. This is a complete disregard of 1993 NVRA federal law Section 8(i) that requires disclosure of voter maintenance lists.The Public Interest Legal Foundation has sued a handful of states over this disclosure issue. The only ERIC lists they received were the dead voter lists. The other 4 types of lists, including EBU lists, were never provided.ERIC Technology:ERIC uses software originally created by an IBM skunkworks project called G2. They were one of the first customers around 2010, using what was called InfoSphere Sensemaking. In 2016, it was rebranded as Senzing software. This is a very sophisticated enterprise-grade “entity resolution” software.It can evaluate multiple pieces of identity info like names, a.k.a. names, addresses, historical addresses, dates of birth, phone numbers, emails, etc. It can conclude what data belongs to the same real-world individual.ERIC uses Senzing software as a service and pays roughly $95k per year. In 2023, ERIC claimed to now use only four data sources. Voter rolls, DMV data, Social Security Death Index, and USPS NCOA (change of address). At one point, ERIC was collecting health ID info from States.For instance, in 2015, Illinois baked into law that it would also provide ERIC information from its DHS (Human Services), HFS (Health & Family), Department of Aging, and IDES agencies. Medical records, health, and income information were excluded. This law ended in 2024.ERIC purposely prevents its member states from mentioning if a person is in the country illegally.This means the system is intentionally not being used as a cross-check of known noncitizens against voter-registration records.If ERIC were to add a data source like USCIS SAVE, or another official DHS immigration-status source, the Sensing technology could determine which registered voters are illegals. The States would have a much more valuable tool if this was done. But only if ERIC came under new, unbiased, and honest leadership. Dems have been running ERIC since its inception.BELOW:ERIC and CEIR founder, David Becker. On stage with Senzing founder Jeff Jonas;“ERIC is the single most effective voter registration drive in U.S. history”.DHS Letter to DOJ. Requests an investigation of ERIC over DPPA violations.View FullscreenSkip to PDF contentThe post This Is Why Homeland Security’s Request that DOJ Investigate the ERIC System Is So Damn Important appeared first on The Gateway Pundit.