Several Democrat-led states resisting Justice Department demands for unredacted voter rolls on privacy grounds have also participated in ERIC, a multistate data-sharing system now under federal scrutiny over its handling of motor-vehicle information and past transfers involving another nonprofit.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Several Democrat-led states fighting the Trump administration’s effort to obtain unredacted voter-registration files have for years participated in a private interstate organization that receives motor-vehicle and election records, creating a new dispute over whether comparable sensitive information was previously shared outside government under circumstances that complied with federal privacy law.
The issue surfaced after Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin asked Attorney General Todd Blanche to investigate the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC, and its past handling of state motor-vehicle information.
The development has placed two parallel data-access disputes under scrutiny.
On one side, the Justice Department has sought complete voter-registration lists containing information including driver’s license numbers and partial Social Security numbers. Several states have refused, arguing that releasing the unredacted records would violate privacy protections or create unacceptable risks involving residents’ personal information.
On the other, a Just the News report is examining whether some of those states previously supplied comparable motor-vehicle information through ERIC and whether protected data subsequently moved to another private nonprofit.
Mullin raised those questions directly in a letter to Blanche, asking the Justice Department to determine whether ERIC violated the federal Driver’s Privacy Protection Act by exposing sensitive information to private parties.
The allegations remain under review. Mullin’s referral does not itself establish that ERIC, the Center for Election Innovation and Research, or any state violated federal law, and ERIC disputes wrongdoing.
The confrontation comes as the Justice Department conducts a sweeping effort to obtain complete state voter files.
The department has filed at least 31 lawsuits against 30 states and Washington, D.C., seeking full voter-registration databases after states declined to provide all of the requested information.
Among the records sought are driver’s license numbers and portions of voters’ Social Security numbers.
Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York and Pennsylvania are among the Democratic-led states that have either challenged the administration’s data demands or faced federal lawsuits over their refusal to turn over complete files.
All five are also members of ERIC.
ERIC’s current membership roster includes 27 states and the District of Columbia. The organization operates as a multistate system through which participating election officials compare voter-registration and motor-vehicle records to identify possible duplicate registrations, people who have moved, deceased voters and residents who may be eligible to vote but are not registered.
The Justice Department’s current dispute with states accelerated in 2025.
Michigan, Minnesota, New York and Pennsylvania were among six states sued in September 2025 after refusing Justice Department demands for their statewide voter-registration lists.
Massachusetts was later included in another round of litigation filed that December against 18 states.
Officials in several of those states have argued publicly that the federal government has not adequately explained how it intends to secure or use the information.
Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon said his office specifically sought assurances before the Justice Department filed its lawsuit.
“We have been very clear with the DOJ about our position that state and federal law do not allow our office to provide them with private voter data unless they provide information about how the information will be used and secured,” Simon said in a statement defending Minnesota’s position.
Simon said Minnesota asked for additional safeguards covering residents’ names, birth dates, addresses, partial Social Security numbers and driver’s license numbers.
“The DOJ remained silent – providing no information about how the data would be protected or used,” Simon said. “Instead, they chose to file a lawsuit.”
Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson has similarly opposed providing unredacted voter information to federal officials.
Benson told constituents that no federal agency has “the right to your sensitive, private voter information,” according to the Brennan Center’s tracking of the Justice Department’s state voter-data demands.
Mullin’s referral now raises a different question: how state officials’ privacy objections to federal access compare with the data-sharing practices required through ERIC and the information previously made available in connection with election outreach.
DHS focused particularly on the relationship between ERIC and the Center for Election Innovation and Research, or CEIR.
David Becker was involved in the creation of both organizations. Becker helped establish ERIC while working with the Pew Charitable Trusts and later founded CEIR. His professional background also includes government service and work as a director for the progressive organization People for the American Way, according to a biographical account of Becker.
The relationship became significant during the 2020 election, when CEIR received funding associated with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.
CEIR’s account of its 2020 Voter Education Grant Program says nearly $65 million was distributed to 23 states for voter-education efforts.
Michigan was among those recipients, and Benson credited the CEIR funding with helping reduce the state’s ballot-rejection rate during the 2020 election.
Mullin’s letter concentrates more closely on Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania received approximately $13 million through the CEIR program. According to DHS, the grant agreement required the state to cooperate with CEIR, including by supplying data the organization reasonably requested.
Mullin said that arrangement included motor-vehicle information that Pennsylvania had initially supplied to ERIC.
The information was used in connection with lists of people identified as eligible but unregistered, commonly referred to as EBU lists, which could then be used for voter-registration outreach.
That process is central to the federal privacy question DHS has asked the Justice Department to examine.
State motor-vehicle agencies hold sensitive personal information that is protected under the federal Driver’s Privacy Protection Act.
The federal statute governing disclosure of motor-vehicle records generally restricts the release and use of personal information obtained from state motor-vehicle databases while establishing specified exceptions under which data may lawfully be disclosed.
Mullin contends the Justice Department should determine whether the ERIC-CEIR arrangements satisfied any of those exceptions.
According to DHS, the concern is not merely that states supplied information to ERIC as part of an election-administration program, but whether data protected under the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act was subsequently shared or used by private organizations in ways Congress did not authorize.
Mullin alleged that ERIC disclosed information including Social Security and driver’s license data to “unknown contractors, subcontractors and agents.”
He further wrote that ERIC later provided information to CEIR, raising questions about whether protected motor-vehicle records were being transferred among nongovernmental organizations.
ERIC disputes that its practices violated the law.
The controversy also highlights the different purposes for which state voter and motor-vehicle information has been sought.
The Justice Department is demanding complete voter-registration files directly from states.
ERIC, meanwhile, uses records supplied by its member states to compare information across jurisdictions and assist election officials with voter-list maintenance and identification of potentially eligible but unregistered residents.
CEIR’s involvement included voter-education and outreach projects.
The legal question is therefore not simply whether similar categories of information existed within each system, but whether particular disclosures, recipients and uses complied with the laws governing those records.
That distinction will be central to any Justice Department review prompted by Mullin’s referral.
The political and legal stakes have increased because the department has repeatedly encountered resistance in court over its own efforts to obtain unredacted voter files.
Federal judges in California, Michigan and Oregon have dismissed Justice Department lawsuits seeking the state records.
A California federal judge characterized the government’s demand as “unprecedented and illegal,” according to reporting on the federal voter-data litigation.
Those rulings have strengthened the states’ position that federal officials cannot automatically compel disclosure of protected voter information merely by requesting it.
Mullin’s referral introduces a different legal issue by asking whether states that resisted federal disclosure demands had previously permitted sensitive motor-vehicle information to move through ERIC and CEIR under circumstances inconsistent with federal privacy restrictions.
DHS publicly referred the matter for Justice Department review this week, according to Just the News.
The contrast does not by itself establish that the states acted inconsistently or unlawfully. Different laws and statutory exceptions can apply depending on who receives information, why it is disclosed and how it is subsequently used.
It does, however, place the history of private election-related data sharing under greater federal scrutiny at the same time states are challenging Washington’s attempts to obtain similar categories of sensitive information.
That scrutiny now leaves Blanche’s Justice Department with two related but legally distinct questions.
One is whether the federal government has authority to compel states to turn over complete voter files containing information those states classify as private.
The other is whether ERIC, CEIR or participating states previously disclosed or used protected motor-vehicle information in ways permitted by the Driver’s Privacy Protection Act.
Mullin has asked DOJ to answer the second question while the department continues litigating the first.
Until that review produces findings, DHS’s concerns about ERIC and CEIR remain allegations rather than established violations.
But the referral has brought renewed attention to a system that has operated for years largely through cooperation among state election offices — including several of the same states now arguing in federal court that sensitive voter and driver information must be protected from the Trump administration’s demands.
Original article
Comments