ERIC Data-Sharing Alliance Helps Uncover Alleged Double Voting Case in Pennsylvania

Officials uncovered a five-year-old case of double voting in Pennsylvania with the help of a voter roll maintenance program that has been the target of conservative attacks in recent years.

The case involved a man named Matthew Laiss, who moved from Pennsylvania to Florida in August 2020, and allegedly voted both in person in Florida and via mail ballot in Bucks County in that year’s November election, prosecutors said.

David Metcalf, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, announced charges against Laiss last week. Pennsylvania’s Department of State confirmed the alleged double vote was identified using data from the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC. Metcalf also announced another set of fraud charges last week, in a case that was not discovered via ERIC.

The announcement that ERIC helped prosecutors uncover alleged double voting comes amid broader questions about the merits of the program. ERIC is a consortium comprising 26 states and the District of Columbia that collects state voter roll data and alerts its members to potentially inaccurate or duplicate voter registration records. It compares state datasets such as driver’s license databases, death records and voter rolls, along with other sources of information, to find cross-state or intra-state matches.




https://www.politicspa.com/eric-data-sharing-alliance-helps-uncover-alleged-double-voting-case-in-pennsylvania/144172/