Rep. Martin Momtahan, a Dallas Republican, introduced House Bill 215 at a recent House Elections Subcommittee meeting in Georgia. The bill, known as the Voter Integrity Act, seeks to regulate voter list maintenance in the state by prohibiting the Secretary of State from participating in the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a multi-state database used to maintain accurate voter rolls.
Despite opposition from voting rights advocates and officials from the Georgia Secretary of State’s office, the bill advanced to the full House Governmental Affairs Committee after a party-line vote. Supporters of the bill, including Rep. Momtahan, argue that moving away from ERIC in favor of more state-based solutions is necessary to protect voter data and confidentiality.
Critics of ERIC, including President Donald Trump and some Republican officials, have raised concerns about election security and privacy issues related to the system. They argue that alternatives such as Eagle AI and state-to-state exchanges could maintain voter lists without sharing personally identifiable information with third parties.
Opponents of HB 215, like Marisa Pyle of All Voting is Local, warn that leaving ERIC could lead to increased costs and inefficiencies in maintaining accurate voter rolls. They argue that ERIC, despite its flaws, is the most effective tool for detecting duplicate voter registrations across state lines.
State Rep. Saira Draper, an Atlanta Democrat who is also an elections attorney, disagrees with the motivation behind HB 215, suggesting that it is a solution in search of a problem. She believes that the real goal of the bill is to push the legitimacy of Eagle AI, a project developed by election deniers that could undermine voting rights, according to the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice.
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