Calvin Coolidge, long before he was president, told his state senator father, “It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones.”
Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin must have been channelling old Silent Cal earlier this month when he vetoed Democrat-led bills that would have required the commonwealth to rejoin the leftist-linked Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC). A report from the Public Interest Legal Foundation on ERIC’s zeal to target for voter registration tens of thousands of ineligible individuals — including the deceased — as “Eligible but Unregistered” shows Youngkin’s instincts were correct.
“I have been explicitly clear about my affirmation of the legitimacy of our elections,” Youngkin wrote in his March 8 veto message. “My focus is safeguarding Virginians’ private information and continuously improving an efficient, cost-effective voter registration system.”
Virginia may have been a founding state member of the voter data-sharing compact in 2012, but by May of 2023 Old Dominion had had enough. As Youngkin noted in his veto message, Virginia’s departure was the result of “persistent management issues, improper data use, escalating costs, and the inability to meet statutory requirements for border state information sharing.”
‘Deceased, Relocated, Ineligible People’
Virginia is among a growing number of states severing ties with ERIC. The multi-state voter roll maintenance partnership has been criticized for pushing expansive voter registration efforts, particularly a requirement that member states reach out to “eligible but unregistered” voters (EBUs) from lists compiled by ERIC.
ERIC “expanded beyond that of its initial intent
