Austin News

The Texas Secretary of State's office announced on Thursday that the state will resign early from the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), an interstate voter registration crosscheck compact. This decision comes ahead of Senate Bill 1070, which was passed during Texas' 88th legislative session and allows for the state's withdrawal from ERIC. The resignation is set to occur more than a month before the law takes effect on September 1.

Currently, there is no verified or tested alternative available for Texas if ERIC is no longer in use. The announcement has raised concerns among voting rights advocates about potential disruptions to voter registration processes.

Common Cause Texas issued a statement criticizing the move: "Withdrawing Texas from ERIC early and without a tested alternative is a dangerous and unnecessary distraction from what our state’s chief elections officer should be doing: making it easier to exercise our right to vote. Deploying partisan tactics like this only stands to scare people away from the ballot box and doesn’t do anything to strengthen the security of our state’s elections."

The organization also highlighted that Texas remains one of only seven states without electronic voter registration options, stating that "manually entering handwritten forms across 254 counties to update voter rolls isn’t a flawless process, and ERIC has been instrumental in addressing involuntary errors." With a major mayoral election approaching in Houston this November, Common Cause Texas expressed concern over how this change might impact voters and poll workers.