By Vince Phillips, High Country Advocate
In Part 9 we examined the structural weaknesses of ERIC — the Electronic Registration Information Center — and Colorado’s continued reliance on it for voter-roll maintenance. Now let’s look at the real-world reaction: nine states voted with their feet and left the organization between 2022 and 2023. Their departures, and the consequences that followed, tell us a great deal about whether ERIC truly deserves the “gold standard” label.The Exodus — Mostly Red StatesAt its peak, ERIC had 31 states plus D.C. Nine states ultimately withdrew. All nine were Republican-controlled at the time of their departure:
- Louisiana (2022)
- Alabama, Florida, Missouri, West Virginia (early 2023)
- Iowa, Ohio (March 2023)
- Virginia (2023 — rejoined in March/April 2026 under new Democratic leadership)
- Texas (July 2023)
As of April 2026, ERIC has 26 states + D.C.Republican-led states still in ERIC (only 4):
Alaska, Georgia, South Carolina, Utah.Democratic-led states still in ERIC (22 states + D.C.):
Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, and the District of Columbia.To show who is really running ERIC today, consider the population each side represents (2026 estimates):
- The 4 Republican-led states have a combined population of roughly 20.8 million.
- The 22 Democratic-led states + D.C. have a combined population of roughly 130 million — more than six times the Republican-led total.
After the wave of departures, ERIC became significantly more ideologically homogeneous — a self-policing organization now overwhelmingly governed and funded by Democratic-led states.Why They LeftThe departing states gave consistent reasons: data privacy and security risks, the built-in “Eligible but Unregistered” outreach component (viewed as a registration drive rather than pure list maintenance), rising costs after other states exited, and frustration with governance and lack of stronger multi-state fraud-checking tools.The Unintended ConsequencesThe states that left did lose the only nationwide cross-state matching system. Many are now using more expensive, less efficient patchwork solutions. Internal documents from several exiting states show officials knew it would make list maintenance harder and more costly.At the same time, these states made a deliberate choice. They decided it was better to leave a system they no longer fully trusted than to remain inside something they viewed as flawed or potentially compromised.Recall the “drunken Frenchman” parable we used in Part 9: the Frenchman is looking for his keys under the streetlight — not because that’s where he lost them, but because that’s where the light is. In ERIC’s case, the parable gets turned on its head. Some of the Frenchmen looked at the streetlight, realized the people controlling the switch were all from one political side, and said, “No thanks — we’ll go look in the dark with our own (imperfect) lanterns.” They prioritized principle over convenience.Final Summary: The Shaky FoundationThese documented flaws and real-world departures do not automatically prove widespread fraud. But they do prove the Colorado “gold standard” election label is marketing, not engineering.ERIC today is:
- self-regulating (member states police themselves),
- not available for independent third-party audits of its algorithms or data integrity,
- virtual with no physical headquarters (just a rented mailing address),
- operating on unpublished 60-day upload cycles that only the insiders know,
- reliant on “living document” voter rolls where yesterday’s version is already overwritten unless someone specifically requested and retained it at the time.
If police were going to raid them, where would they even go?Colorado deserves better. Chaffee County voters deserve better. The “gold standard” claim deserves far more scrutiny than it has received.The foundation keeps looking shakier
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