Missouri has withdrawn from a national coalition of states focused on election integrity and has no plan to replace its services. Talk about bad timing. A contentious presidential election year is right around the corner. Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft must waste no time figuring out how Missouri will ensure that its voter registration rolls are clean.
The Electronic Registration Information Center, ERIC, was created a decade ago to help states improve the accuracy of their voter rolls by searching for people who move or die.
When people move from Missouri to Indiana, for example, they might not think to call Missouri election officials on their way out. They then sign up to vote in the Hoosier State and wind up registered in two states because Missouri doesn’t know to remove them. Those voters, if they were inclined to break the law, could vote in both states.
