Announcing: Not even election clerks are allowed access to Michigan's Electronic Registration Information Center. Third-party ERIC routinely denies citizens' FOIA requests for their legal right to public voter roll information. This violation of our civil rights to transparency must not stand. Take action now.
by Patrice Johnson
April 28, 2022.
PIME supporter Lorraine McGoldrick was curious to know more about ERIC, the Electronic Registration Information Center. What was its role with local clerks, and how did it affect a clerk's performance of her duty to maintain accurate voter rolls?
McGoldrick submitted a FOIA request to her local Rochester Hills clerk, and the response was chilling: DENIED. The rejection of McGoldrick's FOIA stands as a stark reminder that Michigan’s participation in ERIC is an affront to the Freedom of Information Act. It's an affront to government transparency and to every clerks' ability to do their jobs. The clerk wrote,
Hi Lorraine,
Pursuant to your request for information I regret to inform you that we cannot fulfill your request.
ERIC is a non-profit organization which is governed and managed by the states who choose to join. The Clerk's Office does not have access to run any reports as they relate to ERIC and QVF.
You may want to try and contact the Bureau of Elections for information.
Best regards,
[Name withheld], Rochester Hills Clerk's Office
The statement above constitutes further evidence of ERIC's opaque and highly cloaked activities in regard to Michigan’s voter rolls, called the Qualified Voter File or QVF.
ERIC’s bylaws require, on threat of expulsion, Michigan’s secretary of state to contact to register to vote 95% of the “potential eligible" residents on a list that ERIC alone creates and provides.
Because ERIC's activities are shrouded in secrecy from Michigan citizens and clerks, Pure Integrity for Michigan Elections is urging its supporters to contact their legislators for answers to basic election integrity questions:
Is the algorithm that ERIC uses to select “potential eligible" voter registrants fair?
–Between $12 and $15 million Zuckerbucks were distributed in Michigan to 80% to 90% liberal areas. Good chance ERIC’s lists are biased too, especially since many of the same leftist operatives are involved. The public needs access to these algorithms and lists.
Membership in ERIC has proven a massive failure, so why is Michigan still participating?
–SOS Benson joined the state in ERIC in January 2019 under the auspices of cleaning the voter rolls. A little over a year later and for first time in history, the number of registered voters in Michigan grew to 102.4% of voting-aged residents. As of 2020, 69 of Michigan’s 83 counties had more registered voters than eligible voters. Judicial Watch Study Finds 353 U.S. Counties in 29 States with Voter Registration Rates Exceeding 100%
These impossible numbers derive, in part, from automatic voter registrations of noncitizens. When people transfer the title of a vehicle into their names at the DMV, they are automatically registered to vote regardless of citizenship status. Sign up for food stamps; get registered to vote. Thousands of out-of-state residents voted in the 2020 election. In Ingham County alone, volunteer analysts have identified thousands of suspected duplicate and ineligible voter registrants. If ERIC were worth a grain of salt, it would have identified these potential errors for the local clerks to investigate.
But cleaning the voter rolls is not ERIC’s true purpose. According to the Wall Street Journal:
President Biden is ordering all agencies in the federal bureaucracy to “expand citizens’ opportunities to register to vote and to obtain information about, and participate in, the electoral process.” That language, from a March 2021 executive order titled “Promoting Access to Voting,” may sound benign. It isn’t, and it may conceal an abuse of power. The administration is making it difficult for the public to find out.
-- Tarren Bragdon and Stewart Whitson, Voter Registration Drive: What’s Biden Hiding? Mobilizing the federal government to sign people up may sound benign. Far from it.” WSJ Opinion, April 19, 2022.
The leftists have made their strategy clear. They are directing taxpayer-funded government dollars to government agencies to get-out-the-vote in a biased, one-sided manner. Government employees, in turn, are contracting non-government organizations, NGOs, (left-leaning nonprofits like ERIC) to deploy get-out-the-vote tactics in blue areas.
ERIC appears to be the tip of the spear.
On Jan. 27, Louisiana suspended participation in ERIC in light of “allegations of voter fraud or possible misuse of our voters’ personal information.” Michigan must do the same.
What is ERIC doing with Michigan residents’ legally protected personal information?
–PIME has confirmed that the SOS is sharing Michigan residents’ lawfully protected, personal information with third-party ERIC in direct violation of Michigan Law, MCL 168.509gg. This has to stop. Plus, it appears ERIC could be sharing Michiganders private information with other third parties.
Is SOS Benson allowing ERIC or Senzing illegal access to our QVF via an application program interface (API)?
–Three-employee ERIC has ties to Senzing, an artificial intelligence software company that specializes in APIs. Sec. of State Benson allegedly allowed the leftist Rock the Vote illegal access to Michigan’s QVF during the 2020 election. How do we know she’s not allowing ERIC or Senzing similar access?
A PIME supporter FOIAed the SOS for information on ERIC.
Denied.
Now a PIME supporter FOIAed a clerk for information on ERIC.
Also denied.
Time is of the essence. ERIC must not be allowed to corrupt the upcoming November 2022 election. Michigan must immediately cease and desist all participation in ERIC.
ERIC boils down to a government-funded version of Zuckerbucks on steroids. Opaque government-funded, nonprofit alliances like ERIC must not be allowed to press their thumbs on the scale of the electoral process and determine who registers to vote.
For your convenience, I’m enclosing this link to more information on ERIC, including PIME's one-page summary.
For election integrity,
Patrice Johnson, Chair
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