In a significant development pertaining to voter rolls and transparency, the Alaska U.S. District Court on Wednesday denied the State of Alaska’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit filed by the Public Interest Legal Foundation to obtain Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) data reports pertaining to potentially deceased registrants on the state’s voter rolls.
ERIC, an interstate compact, provides member states with reports indicating registrants who are likely deceased, which states rely on to determine eligibility to vote.
The lawsuit, filed in January of 2022, argues that ERIC reports should be considered “records” subject to the disclosure provision of the National Voter Registration Act. That law mandates the disclosure of “all records concerning the implementation of programs and activities conducted for the purpose of ensuring the accuracy and currency of official lists of eligible voters.”
The only exceptions under the disclosure provision are documents showing an individual declined to register to vote and the identity of the government office through which a specific registrant was registered.
The court opinion emphasizes that neither of the National Voter Registration Act’s exclusions applies to information regarding a voter’s death, suggesting that Congress intended for such information to be disclosed, according to the court.
The court’s ruling in favor of the PILF marks the first victory in breaking down what the legal foundation calls ERIC’s “wall of secrecy.”
PILF President J. Christian Adams said, “This is the first victory to knock down ERIC’s wall of secrecy. The organization’s lack of transparency has led to distrust. Elections are best conducted with public scrutiny. This is the first victory to bring about change within ERIC.”
In recent months, several states, including Alabama, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, Ohio, West Virginia, and Virginia, have withdrawn from ERIC. Officials have raised concerns about partisanship within ERIC and the board’s unwillingness to implement substantial reforms that would enhance transparency.
Apart from the lawsuit in Alaska, PILF is pursuing three other ongoing legal actions in Louisiana, Colorado, and the District of Columbia. The objective is to secure ERIC reports and affirm the public’s right to inspect the information used to determine voter eligibility.
The denial of Alaska’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit represents a significant step toward greater transparency in the management of voter rolls, the plaintiffs say. As the PILF continues its legal battles in other states, the outcome of these lawsuits could have far-reaching implications for ERIC and the public’s access to information crucial for ensuring the integrity of the electoral process.
The case file can be viewed this PILF link. The court’s refusal to dismiss is at this link.
I’m good with this. I want this to land in court so people and facts are public.
ERIC gets PILFered…
Love it! More. MORE. Faster. FASTER.
Good, time to dump ERIC altogether. Governor Dunleavy can make this law suit disappear by firing ERIC and finding a different system or just dropping voters from the rolls when a death certificate is filed, or their residence is changed at the DMV, agreements with all other states regarding driver’s license residency could maintain a current database in real time. The state could pass a law to drop unresponsive voters after say 5 years which would be two federal elections and 5 state/local. Looking at the current AZ signature verification lawsuit I don’t see how unsolicited mail in ballots are viable. The state and or municipality is violating my rights to have my vote count if there is a strong possibility that the election is not properly monitored. This mail in problem is baked into the system and must change.
It used to be that two years’ inactivity would get you dropped from voter rolls. Motor Voter changed that. Perhaps the cure is examining existing laws instead of passing more laws?
Good! ERIC is a scam and many states have chosen to stop using this fraudulent system. The only question is why Alaska is still using it. ERIC has to go.
Alarmingly, Alaska’ election officials are so opposed to “ensuring the accuracy and currency of official lists of eligible voters” that they’ll spend tens of thousands of taxpayer dollars on lawyers to stop efforts to obtain ERIC data reports pertaining to potentially deceased registrants on the state’s voter rolls.
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Alaska’s elections boss, Lieutenant Governor Dahlstrom, has not said why she’s against the idea of the public knowing how many dead folks vote in Alaska, and whether they vote in other ERIC-served states.
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The takeaway is that Alaska’s election system, which requires the secret processes embedded in Dominion vote-tabulation gear, also needs dead voters whose numbers and possible roles as multi-state voters must also be kept secret.
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With respect, Lieutenant Governor Dahlstrom, the perception is that Alaska’s electoral system, which you oversee, is so corruptible and mismanaged you have to sue to stop voters from finding out how bad things really are.
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The Anchorage Assembly buys flophouses for bums. Helpful folks help register who knows how many bums to vote at those physical addresses. These physical addresses are likely unknown to anyone who checks voter rolls. Now we find out we should not be allowed to know how many dead folks get on, and stay on, state voter rolls.
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We’re told by the same officials who don’t want us to know how many dead folks voted that a bunch of people (alive or dead, we don’t know) didn’t vote in the last election. Your predecessor, the Conoco-Phillips guy, contemptuously dismissed voters’ concerns as misinformation. Care to explain, Lt. Guv?
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Dancing tranvestites, voting zombies, what’s next in this amazing circus?
I wrote to The governor about this issue months ago his staff turned to Dahlstrom’s office so a staff member sent me essentially the same statement that the last LT Gov. had said, “federal law, takes 5 years, blah blah blah” I asked why they didn’t just force the issue in court and received no further reply. I am glad this is happening, I hope Judicial Watch sues the state again. This time I hope they challenge the Muni and state on the legitimacy of their mail in and signature verification process and partisan observer protocols.
We have a problem if someone needs to sue the state for access to public information.
Wayne check this out , The Alaska permanent Fund me to do that same thing (sue) to get that Public information . the reason why Trustees at the APF aren’t Bonded!
My received Email Dated Friday , May 19, 2023
Mr. Martin,
Following your May 5th phone call with APFC’s Executive Director and General Counsel, this responds to
your May 9, 2023 email to the Alaska Permanent Fund Corporation (APFC) requesting:
“1) All copy’s of Required Oaths of Office within the Corporation Structure of the Alaska Permanent Fund
Corporation currently.
2) All copy’s of all required Performance / Fiduciary / Fidelity Bonds of Corporate Leadership, Employees &
Trustees.
3) Any and all communication(s) with the Dept. of Law (including the AG Trig Taylor or staff) with regard to
bonding requirements under AS 39.15.010 – 100. Please provide subsequent Opinion(s) of law . if any. of
such inquiry’s”
Copies of APFC’s Board of Trustees signed Oaths of Office are attached to this letter.
APFC Corporate Leadership, Employees and Trustees are not required to hold
performance/fiduciary/fidelity bonds. As they are not required, no such records exist pertaining to this
request.
Communications between APFC and the Alaska Department of Law regarding the bonding requirements
under Alaska law are protected by the Attorney-Client Privilege and are not subject to disclosure under AS
44.25.1120(a)(4). See Griswold v. Homer City Council, 428 P.3d 180, 188 (Alaska 2018).
Because we have denied you a copy of some of the public records that you have requested, we wish to
advise you that you have appeal rights for the records you requested and were not provided. You may
seek immediate judicial review of the denials by seeking an injunction from the superior court under AS
40.25.125. You may administratively appeal the full and partial denials by complying with the
procedures in 2 AAC 96.340. An election not to pursue injunctive remedies in superior court will have no
adverse effect on your rights before the agency to seek administrative redress. An administrative appeal
from a denial of a request for public records requires no appeal bond.
Sincerely,
Adam Kane
Communications Specialist
What a Government we have , ” WE ” are the PUBLIC enemy # ONE! & by the way ” request for public records requires no appeal bond” I am so lucky. ha
Well this is heartening news. ERIC seems to be more of a cheating protection program. We should withdraw from it but having some transparency would be a huge improvement.
Morrigan,Sapper,Wayne: All great points. What is the state hiding? Dumping ERIC is just common sense. As a side note, I was a past election official, I can assure you the Dominion machines DO connect to the internet and transfer data. Allegedly only to Juneau. Right.
Thanks for serving as an election official, George.
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The fact that Dominion machines transfer vote counts via internet should be a major concern.
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Really doubt Dominion machinery uses anything except proprietary code. Operators know it talks, but they don’t know everyone it talks to, could be told to talk to, what it says when it does talk, or how vulnerable data transfer is to various types of Man in the Middle (MitM) attacks.
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What’s a man-in-the-middle attack? It’s a cyberattack wherein data is intercepted by an attacker inserting himself into the communication process. The attacker can be a passive listener stealing secrets, an active participant changing message contents (think vote counts!), or the attacker can impersonate the person/system you believe you’re talking to.
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It’s difficult to trust net-based election gear running on proprietary code. We don’t know what assures the proprietary code can’t be operator-altered, or altered without the operator’s knowledge to facilitate fractional vote counting, spoof data-integrity checks, or send election data somewhere it isn’t supposed to go.
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We aren’t persuaded that Division of Elections employees have the skillset or equipment for real-time detection and prevention of MitM attacks —which can change election outcomes—, with voters none the wiser.
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You’re right, George. Looks like Alaska’s voters have a huge problem which their government officials seem to be working very hard to hide.
During the time of the revolution, voting was conducted ‘in person’. Eligible voters stood in a group to show they were voting for person A and those that were voting for person B stood in a different group, then heads were counted. If we went back to this, just think of all the corrupt practices that would automatically be eliminated. No way you could vote twice, if the head counts were taken at the same time. And if you voted in someone else’s place, everyone in the crowd would see what you were doing.
Until we can assure one vote per actual, qualified, live person, we can never have a secure election.
Wrong address ballots combined with quickie or non-existing signature verification or ‘curing’. Plus lists of likely party voters addresses who didn’t vote last election all courtesy of eric to one party only under the guise of voter roll maintenance.
Come on Dunleavy git rid of ERIC. I did not give permission for the state or any election operation to take my personal info. This is nonsense we need to go back to hand counting ballots period.
It should be a very simple process to determine who should and should not be on the voter rolls. The only thing missing is the will of the executive office. Simple as that. We manage to determine who has a valid drivers license when a traffic stop is made, so how is it that we don’t know who is and is not a resident? Who is or is not a felon? Who is or is not alive? We have the records, and data mining should be a simple thing these days. Somebody prefers that it not be.
The last time Governor Dunleavey and his crony reviewed the state rolls and said, “We recounted everything by hand and we agree the outcome of the election was accurate. Bull. In order to know it was accurate is to do a forensic examination just like Jovan H Pulitzer did on those Dominion machines. The bulls eye missed how many times? I can not count that high (just kidding). There were many ballots not counted in the last Presidential election. And from a new book out by Congressman Troy E. Nehls provides all the sordid history on election theft going back to 1789 in Georgia. There is abundant historical facts that prove election fraud. It is the repeat, repeat, repeat of history and the Democrat party is doing it, along with some Republicans.
This is fantastic news! ERIC is a scam to not clean voter rolls and use dead or moved voters to stuff the ballot box against the voters’ wishes. ERIC has an address in D.C. that turned out to be an empty office. You must ask yourself, why did the State of Alaska request dismissal? I will tell you why. Dunleavy is a RINO and is selling us down a river. He is controlled, damaged goods. When will Alaskan’s vote for an outsider, not a get in line politician like Dunleavy. We need a Chris Kurka or Dave Eastman in the Governor’s Office. Then you will see real representation, not just lip service.
Very obvious posters do not understand ERIC as many are asking what ERIC does, or asking for actions similar to ERIC. ERIC uses already public information to identify where people are registered to vote in more than one precinct. Duplicate enrollment is primarily due to people moving, not fraud. It costs Alaska about $16,000/year-to participate.
You’re a fine example of a Useful Idiot. Here’s a snippet from PILF VS Meyer. I don’t know why I should waste my time with you.
” 25. The ERIC Membership Agreement prevents Alaska from disclosing records
Alaska is otherwise legally required to disclose without first obtaining a court order.
ERIC Bylaws, Exhibit A (Membership Agreement) at Section 4(a) (PDF page 15)
(“Should a Member receive a request to disclose ERIC Data and determines that it is
legally obligated, in whole or in part, to comply with such request, it shall not make the
disclosure without first obtaining a court order compelling it to do so, a copy of which
shall be provided to ERIC.”) (emphasis added). A “court order” is not required for parties
to exercise the right to publicly inspect voter list maintenance records that was
established by Congress in the NVRA.”
But ERIC gives this info for free to Center for Election Innovation & Research (CEIR) founded by the same communist. ERIC-CEIR hahahahahaha get it Frank?
Hey everybody is this rocket science? It seems to be for Frank.
Guess in Alaska we are all granted eternal life. Wonder how I will vote when I pass. Perhaps it should be included in my will. Certainly in-person voting would make for difficulties with the present system. You can’t discriminate against anyone, even the dead.
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