Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger signed an executive order on March 24, directing the state to begin the process of rejoining the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a nonprofit data-sharing organization whose membership included Virginia before the state withdrew in 2023.
ERIC is a 26-state compact, including the District of Columbia, through which member states share voter registration and driver’s license data. The organization uses that information to identify voters who have moved across state lines, hold duplicate registrations, or are deceased, and provides the findings to member states for voter roll maintenance.
Executive Order 13 directs the commissioner of the Department of Elections to certify in writing within 30 days that Virginia has started the process of rejoining ERIC. The order does not finalize membership.
Per the order, the state must use all four of ERIC’s voter list maintenance reports—covering cross-state movers, in-state movers, duplicate registrations, and deceased voters—as part of routine voter roll upkeep once membership is restored.
The order states that Virginia’s withdrawal from ERIC in May 2023 made it more difficult for election administrators to maintain voter rolls and conduct routine list maintenance.
“With even more days of voting on our calendar this year, I’m acting early to strengthen Virginia’s transparent, robust voting process and protect the rights of all eligible Virginia voters,” Spanberger, a Democrat, said in a news release.
“The actions Virginia is taking today are not only critical to allowing all eligible Virginia voters to register and cast their ballot, but to making sure that only Virginians who are eligible to vote are able to vote in our Commonwealth—this year, and in every election into the future.”
Under the order, the elections commissioner must also review existing data-sharing partnerships with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Election Assistance Commission to determine whether those arrangements remain necessary once Virginia rejoins ERIC.
Executive Order 13 covers additional election security procedures. It directs the elections commissioner to certify annually that Virginia maintains 100 percent paper ballots, documented chain-of-custody protocols, pre-election machine testing, and other security measures. The order replaces two prior executive orders on election security, Executive Order 35 (2024) and Executive Order 53 (2025).
At the time the state left ERIC, Virginia Elections Commissioner Susan Beals listed a variety of concerns, including how ERIC handles the “stewardship, maintenance, privacy, and confidentiality” of Virginia voter information.
Other reasons for Virginia’s resignation from ERIC listed by Beals included the cost of membership, data sharing with non-ERIC members, data sharing for political purposes, and “Virginia’s ability to replicate favorable ERIC functionality internally.”
Shane Hamlin, executive director of ERIC, disputed claims by Beals and others at the time, stating, “We follow widely accepted security protocols for handling the data we utilize to create the reports.”
Youngkin said Virginia had arranged bilateral data-sharing agreements with 41 states at no additional cost, compared with ERIC’s 25-state network at the time.
Virginia was among nine Republican-led states that withdrew from ERIC in 2023. The others were Alabama, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, Ohio, Texas, and West Virginia.
The concerns cited varied by state. Cost, data privacy, and the requirement to mail voter registration outreach to unregistered residents were the most common reasons given publicly by officials.