According to a complaint filed in federal court by a civil rights watchdog, communist election laws activist David Becker carried out a plan denying people their privacy and voting right with the assistance of the Wisconsin Department of Transportation.  ,
The complaint claims that Becker is using the Electronic Registration Information Center ( ERIC ) and the Center for Election Innovation and Research to “infiltrate WisDOT’s Division of Motor Vehicles ( “DMV” ) database to access the driving records containing the personal information of millions of Wisconsin residents and eligible American voters.” In doing so, the lawsuit alleges, Becker and ERIC “exploited” the nonprofit’s tax-exempt status in acquiring highly sensitive information for purposes strictly prohibited under the federal Driver’s Privacy and Protection Act ( DPPA ).  ,
Surprisingly, the complaint asserts that the Wisconsin Elections Commission has n’t signed a contract with ERIC in eight years, which further amplifies the alleged illegal data collection. An official with the Elections Commission refutes the claim, telling The Federalist that the state-run vote monitoring system’s membership agreement is still in place.  ,
The lawsuit, brought by Citizen AG, a liberal civil rights law firm, on behalf of La Crosse, Wisconsin, native Jennifer McKinney, seeks declaratory relief, problems, and an injunction against ERIC, CEIR, Becker and the Department of Transportation from “obtaining, disclosing, and using private information from driving data for voting or election-related uses” . ,
According to the court filing, Becker and the others “have knowingly engaged in and will continue to do so in a coordinated effort to obtain, use, and disclose sensitive, protected personal information of Wisconsin residence [sic ] from driving records obtained through the Wisconsin DMV in violation of federal law, with the intention to compromise and undermine the fundamental right to vote of millions of Wisconsin voters,” according to the court filing.  ,
” This Problem seeks not only to keep ERIC, CEIR, Becker, and WisDOT guilty, but to restore the integrity and people trust in our nation’s democratic political procedure”, the lawsuit adds.  ,
‘ Hard-Core Leftist ‘
With the help of numerous leftist organizations and a purported goal of creating a “membership organization consisting of state election officials working together to improve the accuracy of state voter registration lists, Becker founded the contentious ERIC in 2012. The lawsuit and ERIC’s critics, including several states that have left the compact in recent years, claim the center has failed that mission.  ,
Prior to founding the nonprofit, Becker worked as a lawyer for the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Section. He left the position in 2005 after an ethics complaint revealed that he had” contacted the City of Boston and offered his services in opposition to a lawsuit brought by the DOJ — his own employer — seeking to impose federal voting rights laws against the City,” according to the lawsuit.  ,
” It was the most unethical thing I’ve ever seen”, Brad Schlozman, acting head of the Civil Rights Division at the time, told Legal Newsline in 2020. ” Classic case of someone who should have been disbarred”.
” He’s a hard-core leftist”, Schlozman added. ” Could n’t stand conservatives”.
Becker became the director of People for the American Way after leaving the DOJ. A few years later, in 2008, Becker was hired to lead the left-leaning Pew Charitable Trusts ‘ election initiatives.
” In a preliminary meeting of election law experts, Becker and other members of the group came to the conclusion that voter registration was the biggest issue with the American electoral process. According to Becker, the nonprofit sector would need to step in because it is too politically divided to encourage voter registration, according to nonprofit tracker InfluenceWatch.  ,
ERIC was born. A tool for the leftist Brennan Center’s goal of “putting millions of new voters on the rolls through a modernized registration system.”
‘ Trojan Horse ‘
State members pay the organization hundreds of thousands of dollars in annual dues and grant ERIC “unfettered access to its DMV databases,” according to the complaint.  , In exchange, ERIC spends a lot of time reaching out to individuals it places on the member state’s “eligible but unregistered” ( EBU) lists. As The Federalist has reported, those names include non-citizens.  ,
ERIC claims it’s all about improving voter roll accuracy, although, the complaint alleges, the voter tracking system has made voter lists “less accurate” over the years.  ,
The lawsuit claims that Becker’s membership agreements are nothing more than trojan horse contracts that he uses to sift through the statewide DMV databases of more than half the nation, or 271 votes total from the Electoral College,  ,
The sweeping use of private information, the complaint charges, is not permitted under the , Driver’s Privacy and Protection Act.  ,  ,
” In fact, DPPA provides for fourteen ( 14 ) exceptions to the use of this highly-sensitive information and not one of these even tangentially pertains to voting or elections”, the lawsuit states.  ,
Further, the complaint claims that ERIC violates Wisconsin Elections Commission privacy laws without having a contract with the Wisconsin Elections Commission. Citizen AG claimed the state regulator sent an agreement signed with the long-defunct Government Accountability Board, which was shut down and replaced by WEC in 2016, to request a copy of the membership agreement.  ,
The lawsuit claims that Wisconsin is fully aware that its contract with ERIC expired more than 3, 000 days ago on June 30, 2016, and that Wisconsin has never rejoined the company since. ERIC has continued to demand that Wisconsin pay hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal and state funds for “membership dues,” according to the lawsuit.  ,
” Eric has succeeded in obtaining personal information from driving records, and ERIC has demanded that Wisconsin provide it with the State’s DMV data in blatant violation of the DPPA.”
Riley Vetterkind, a spokesman for the Wisconsin Elections Commission, refuted the claim.  ,
” Wisconsin is, and has been, a member of ERIC, as required by state law. The membership agreement has never been terminated and is still in effect”, Vetterkind said in an email response to The Federalist’s questions.  ,
‘ Shell Game ‘
Becker founded the Center for Election Innovation and Research in 2016, a nonprofit whose purported goal is to “restore trust in the American electoral system and promote election procedures that encourage participation and ensure election integrity and security.”
Perhaps CEIR did n’t do itself any favors on the” trust” front when it brought in nearly$ 70 million in” Zuckbucks” from the hundreds of millions of dollars that Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, hid in the 2020 election under the pretense of Covid. The majority of the funds were distributed in battleground states and used for get-out-the-vote campaigns targeting traditionally liberal voters, as The Federalist has detailed in detail.  ,
“CEIR’s Voter Education Grant Program was anything but educational: it was a partisan mission to inject capital into swing states and states within then-Democratic candidate Joseph Biden’s reach”, the lawsuit asserts.  ,
” In Michigan, for example, Becker gave Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson roughly$ 11.9 million for what Becker and CEIR reported as ‘ urgent voter educational assistance.’ No educational component was attached to, or resulted from, these funds. Rather, Secretary Benson handed the money off to Michigan’s Center for Election Law and Administration (‘ MCELA ‘ ), and the MCELA spent$ 11.7 million on Democratic consulting firms for ‘ media strategy and purchase.'”
According to the lawsuit, Becker “rolled out CEIR to make it appear as though ERIC was fully-compliant” with privacy laws and used the sensitive information to “influence American elections.” The lawsuit refers to CEIR as” an additional layer of liability.”
According to the complaint, ERIC receives and collects state resident data, while CEIR receives all non-member state dues funds.  ,
According to the lawsuit, ERIC then sends the data it receives from the states to CEIR, who creates mailing lists and organizes the data into a format that encourages outreach efforts. CEIR then sends the data back to ERIC, “which, in turn, returns the data to its member states, complete with new EBU’s and a handful of ineligible voter labels affixed thereto”.
According to the complaint, CEIR uses the data to contact voters and encourage them to register,” and ERIC appears to have produced data that helps its member states identify ineligible voters for removal in addition to providing labels that identify which voters are EBUs in the state.”  ,
Becker made the announcement that he would leave ERIC when he began CEIR, but he continued to serve as a non-voting board member. According to the lawsuit,” Becker continued to have control over ERIC’s activities and objectives.” Following the departures of member states Missouri, Florida, and West Virginia, which were part of an ERIC state exodus over the past few years, Becker announced late last year that he would not accept renomination to the board.  ,
ERIC and CEIR officials did not return The Federalist’s email requests seeking comment.  ,
The Wisconsin Department of Transportation does not comment on ongoing litigation, according to an official from the agency.  ,
The defendants “undermining their confidence in the integrity of the electoral process, discouraging their participation in the democratic process, instilling in them the fear that their legitimate votes will be nullified or diluted, and actually diluting their votes,” according to the lawsuit.
For more election news and updates, visit , electionbriefing.com.
Matt Kittle covers The Federalist’s senior elections coverage. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.
