Louisiana added to list of states sharing voter data with Alabama

Michelle Orengo-McFarlane looks for her name on a voter registration list in San Francisco, California in a file photo. Alabama pulled out of the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) earlier this year to create its own system, but experts say it may not have the safeguards of ERIC. (David Paul Morris/Getty Images)

Alabama added Louisiana to the list of states that the Secretary of State’s Office has agreed to share voter data as part of an effort to maintain accurate voter rolls for the state under its new Alabama Voter Integrity Database (AVID).

Secretary of State Wes Allen announced the memorandum of understanding (MOU) in a Wednesday news release, making it the sixth state that has signed an agreement with Alabama to share voter files, and completing an agreement with all states that border it.

“I want to thank our team in Alabama and Secretary (Nancy) Landry’s team in Louisiana for their hard work on this MOU,” said Secretary Allen. “Over 140,000 potentially ineligible voters have been identified through AVID thus far, and I look forward to seeing the progress that will be made through AVID’s sixth state partnership.”

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A consortium of other states uses another system, the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), to cross check voter registration information to ensure that voters are not registered to vote in a single state and to maintain their voter rolls.

Allen made replacing the ERIC system a priority in his 2022 campaign for the office. He withdrew from ERIC almost immediately after taking office, claiming that ERIC is part of a liberal group funded by George Soros, a billionaire who funded liberal causes. ERIC is a nonprofit established in 2012 funded by states who are members, which includes both left leaning and conservative states.

In September, he unveiled AVID to manage the state’s registered voter rolls.

AVID uses state and federal resources, including the U.S. Postal Service’s Change of Address File and the Social Security Death Index, to check the registration status of voters.

Another critical feature is the ability to obtain voter rolls from other states, particularly those adjacent to Alabama, to cross check the names contained within the files to maintain accurate voter rolls.

AVID uses all the elements that ERIC is already implementing. According to the ERIC website, the shared data includes voter registration and motor vehicle data. ERIC also obtains death data from the Social Security Administration and the National Change of Address Program from the U.S. Postal Service.

To cross-check voter rolls, the state must secure MOUs with other states critical as another means to identify and verify those who should be registered to vote.

Election administration experts expressed skepticism last year about whether AVID could be as robust as ERIC, as more states are part of ERIC than AVID. Thus far, six states have signed an agreement with Alabama to be part of AVID. 25 entities are part of ERIC.

They also say that ERIC has a robust process and stand by the results that it has produced for ensuring that the process ERIC uses for maintaining accurate voter rolls ERIC uses several factors to ensure those with the same name are, in fact, different people.

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