Utah House votes to withdraw from ERIC, requires new voter‑data arrangements and privacy standards

The Utah House on Feb. 14 approved House Bill 3 32, a measure that requires the lieutenant governor to terminate Utah's membership in the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) and enables the lieutenant governor to enter new memorandums of understanding with other states or consortia that meet Utah's data-privacy and security standards. The bill passed on a 59-13 vote after extensive floor debate.

Sponsor Representative Lisenby said the bill responds to a December 2024 elections audit and longstanding problems with voter‑roll maintenance. "Clean voter rolls are the foundation for secure elections," Lisenby told colleagues, citing audit findings that the rolls contained roughly 700 active deceased voters who received ballots and more than 400 likely deceased records left on the rolls for more than a year.

The legislation requires updated chain‑of‑custody procedures for ballots, data-privacy and security protections, and gives the lieutenant governor authority to enter single‑state or multistate agreements to access and match voter records. Proponents argued leaving ERIC is necessary because several other states have exited the consortium and because some member states allegedly imposed conditions that compromised data quality and privacy.

Opponents and some members sought a phased exit. Representative Cutler offered an amendment that would have required Utah to have new agreements in place with at least six other states before withdrawing from ERIC; that amendment failed. Representative Ballard and others expressed concern that any rapid transition must ensure a replacement system and procurement process exist before termination of current services; Ballard also raised operational concerns about long-term video retention requirements in counties.

Representative Thurston, among supporters of exit, said some states used ERIC’s governance to impose policies and requirements on participating states, and that Utah should return to a narrower data‑exchange approach.

The bill was amended during floor consideration; substitute 4 contains the requirements directing the lieutenant governor to cancel the ERIC contract and to comply with Utah data‑privacy standards for any successor arrangements. The House approved the fourth substitute and passed HB 3 32, which will be sent to the Senate.