By DAN FAGAN
Three Republican-led states on Monday announced they’re cutting ties with an election information organization that has history with liberal groups such as the Pew Charitable Trust and George Soros.
In 2012, left-wing activists founded the Electronic Registration Information Center, also known as ERIC. The nonprofit claimed it would help states clean up their voter roles. But critics says the opposite is true.
Florida, West Virginia, and Missouri announced they’ll end their alliance with ERIC. Already, Alabama and Louisiana had left the organization, having lost faith in its neutrality.
Alaska, along with 30 other states, is a member of ERIC. Alaska’s recently appointed head of the Division of Elections, Carol Beecher, sits on ERIC’s board. Beecher is not paid for the position, and it should be noted that all member states have someone on the ERIC board.
Beecher is a conservative who was criticized by Democrats when she was appointed by Lt. Gov. Nancy Dahlstrom. Criticism centered on the fact that she is a registered Republican and had donated money to the campaign of former President Donald Trump.
As of this writing, Beecher has not responded to Must Read Alaska’s request for a comment on the five Republican-led states that left the organization, and whether her department will follow suit.
Read the Florida Department report on election crimes
Member states are required to provide ERIC with highly coveted voter information that could prove useful for partisans looking to influence an election.
States aligned with ERIC must submit to the organization all details on inactive and active voters every 60 days. The states must also provide names of every individual in their Motor Vehicle Department database, both licensed and ID recipients.
This comprehensive information could prove to be a gold mine for bad actors wishing to manufacture illegal ballots.
ERIC sells itself as a group aiming to help states clean up voter rolls. But the organization’s bylaws prove otherwise.
ERIC issues a list to each member state and demands they target those people for registration, although ERIC does not actually require states clean up voter rolls.
The Gateway Pundit described ERIC as “a left wing voter registration drive all paid for by the states, not the Democrat Party.”
Conservatives have been skeptical of ERIC, not just because of the group’s early ties to Soros and Pew, but the organization’s architecture was designed by David Becker, who is a major player in Democrat circles.
Becker was the point man in distributing Facebook owner Mark Zuckerberg’s millions in so called “Zuckerbucks,” that appeared designed to elect Joe Biden in 2020.
Soros has spent millions nationally fighting laws designed to bring about election integrity. Soros also funds, through ProPublica, the Anchorage Daily News. The ADN editorial board has been aggressive in attacking and demonizing any political figure who questions the integrity of Alaska’s elections.
Many Alaskans are skeptical of ERIC. Offering valuable voter data to a leftist-aligned group may only deepen the suspicion.
Alaskans have seen problems with voter databases and elections being tampered with:
In October of 2020, hackers penetrated Alaska’s election computers. The Division of Elections waited until after the November election to reveal that the personal information of 100,000 Alaskans had been compromised and that the state would be paying for credit and ID monitoring through Equifax for those voters.
State Sen. Mike Shower, a Republican representing Wasilla and north in the Interior Railbelt, pushed for legislation to clean up Alaska voter rolls. Currently close to 600,000 Alaskans are registered to vote. This is mathematically impossible when factoring in those living in the state under the voting age of 18.
Then there’s the case of former Republican legislator Gabrielle LeDoux. LeDoux is charged with first degree voter misconduct, a class C felony punishable up to two years in prison among other things. LeDoux’s alleged crimes happened during the 2014 election, according to state prosecutors. She has yet to go to trial, and the trial date has been pushed to this upcoming August.
Voters may wonder if Alaska courts or state leaders take seriously the job of maintaining election integrity, especially if the State continues to align itself with and provide valuable voter data to an organization with such ties to George Soros.
Dan Fagan is a reporter for Must Read Alaska. Email news tips to [email protected].
