Rhode Island officials prompted possible noncitizens to register to vote: Report

Officials in Rhode Island, one of the bluest states in America, reportedly sent out notices to possible noncitizens, urging them to register to vote.

In 2021, Rob Rock — who was then the director of elections at the Rhode Island State Department and is now deputy secretary and director of administration — was corresponding via email with Kyle Upchurch, program manager at the Center for Election Innovation & Research, the Federalist reported.

During their exchanges, Upchurch inquired about a group of residents referred to as "eligible but unregistered" to vote. In response, Rock claimed that the state had sent mailers to so-called EBUs, some of whom were flagged as noncitizens.

"We sent two versions of the EBU," Rock wrote, according to emails viewed by the Federalist. "One to people who have a 'Y' citizenship flag and one to those who have a 'No' citizenship flag. Each PDF contains the English and Spanish versions."

How many mailers were sent overall and how many were sent to noncitizens specifically remains unclear. However, the purpose of the mailer, according to a statement to the Federalist from Department of State Director of Communications and Public Affairs Faith Chybowski, was to identify recently naturalized citizens.

The text of the mailer appears to support Chybowski's explanation.

"Our records show that you have not been eligible to vote due to your U.S. citizenship status. If your status has changed recently, you may now be eligible to vote," the mailer reads, according to a copy ostensibly reviewed by the Federalist.

The mailer also reportedly warns recipients that they must be U.S. citizens to register to vote.

'Why do you care whether voters are 22 or 63, other than younger voters tend to lean left?'

Unfortunately, recent attempts to clean up voter rolls in other states revealed that noncitizens are regularly registering to vote, despite the federal prohibition against doing so.

Virginia recently removed from its voter rolls more than 6,300 noncitizens who, according to Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin, "accidentally or maliciously" registered to vote. The Biden-Harris DOJ responded by suing the state.

After facing a series of lawsuits late this summer, Arizona discovered that perhaps as many as 97,000 residents had registered to vote without ever providing proof of citizenship. The state supreme court ruled late last month that these residents could still vote in state and local elections in 2024.

Rhode Island claims to have removed nearly 150,000 names from its voter rolls since 2020.

Despite a nationwide problem of noncitizens appearing on voter rolls, officials in Rhode Island may not compel someone to provide documented proof of citizenship when registering to vote, the Rhode Island State Department told the Federalist. Instead, registrants provide "an attestation that the signer is a citizen," Chybowski said.

Perhaps even more alarming, Rhode Island sent the mailer soliciting more voter registration because of its membership in the Electronic Registration Information Center, better known as ERIC.

ERIC bills itself as a "nonpartisan" organization designed "to help election officials" in member states "maintain more accurate voter rolls and detect possible illegal voting."

It is also funded entirely through fees paid by its 25 members, including the District of Columbia. In other words, taxpayers pay for its existence.

Far from "nonpartisan," though, ERIC was founded by David Becker, a former DOJ attorney characterized by a former colleague as "a hard-core leftist" who "couldn’t stand conservatives."

Just a few weeks ago, Becker dismissed concerns about noncitizens voting in American elections, indicating that such reports were a "made-up threat" coming from former President Donald Trump and his Republican allies.

"Remember to seek out only OFFICIAL election info, from trusted sources like election officials," he wrote in mid September.

Becker is no longer listed on the ERIC website, but the organization still seems to make election-related demands that favor Democrats. For instance, ERIC shares with third parties certain demographic information about voters, including age.

"Why do you care whether voters are 22 or 63, other than younger voters tend to lean left?" asked Michael Greibrok of the Foundation for Government Accountability, a federal watchdog group.

Among the third parties with which ERIC coordinates is the Center for Election Innovation & Research, the group Kyle Upchurch represented when he mentioned "eligible but unregistered" concerns with Rob Rock of the Rhode Island State Department back in 2021.

And indeed ERIC appears fixated on EBUs. On its website, the group laments that America has perhaps as many as 51 million EBUs scattered throughout the country.

Tens of millions of EBUs in a free country are only a problem if those individuals desire to register to vote but have been prevented by external circumstances beyond their control. In all likelihood, they do not want to register to vote and may even have deliberately elected against doing so. ERIC apparently wants them to register anyway.

"ERIC was established to clean up the voter rolls in member states. However, the member agreement only mandates adding voters, not removing them," Ned Jones, director of the Citizens Election Research Center at the Election Integrity Network, noted to the Federalist.

"Under the ERIC agreement, member states may be registering noncitizens," he added.

Since 2021, at least nine states have parted ways with ERIC, perhaps on account of its partisan activism: Alabama, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, Ohio, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia.

"ERIC is a bipartisan organization that operates in a nonpartisan manner," ERIC Executive Director Shane Hamlin told the Washington Examiner in December 2023. "We valued the states that resigned, but we will continue to work on behalf of our remaining members in improving the accuracy of America’s [voter] rolls and increasing access to voter registration for all eligible citizens."

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