Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2-11-2026

Department 1

Political Science

Abstract

Election integrity is paramount to democratic health. The Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) is a multistate collaboration that facilitates essential election administration functions, whereby members share administrative data to ensure clean voter registration lists and to encourage individuals who are eligible but unregistered (EBUs) to register to vote. Despite ERIC’s primary focus on maintaining the accuracy of voter rolls, in 2022, some conservatives accused it of being a tool for partisan electioneering, prompting nine Republican-led states to leave ERIC. To assess the validity of a central criticism made against ERIC, the authors leverage field experiments conducted by member states during the 2016 elections in Pennsylvania and Nevada (i.e., two important swing states). They find no empirical evidence to support the claim that outreach to EBUs yielded a partisan advantage: ERIC’s registration efforts had little differential effect on party registration or turnout. This article discusses the importance of efforts to maintain accurate voter rolls and to encourage greater participation for promoting confidence in our democratic system.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

DOI

10.1017/S1049096525101819

Version

Version of Record

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