Georgia’s SB214 Showdown: ERIC Exit, Voter Purge, and HB268’s Hidden Threat

Tune in for a break­down of Georgia’s SB214, fac­ing a piv­otal 1 PM com­mit­tee hear­ing on March 25, 2025, to ditch ERIC—the Elec­tron­ic Reg­is­tra­tion Infor­ma­tion Center—and shift State Elec­tion Board pow­er. With just six days left in the leg­isla­tive ses­sion, SB303’s paper bal­lot push merges into SB214. ERIC, cred­it­ed with flag­ging 455K out­dat­ed vot­er reg­is­tra­tions for Georgia’s his­toric purge, is under fire with SOS Raf­fensperg­er and Gabriel Ster­ling defend­ing its role in clean­ing vot­er rolls. Law­mak­ers are urged to ignore media spin and push for ERIC’s removal. Mean­while, HB268 threat­ens to crim­i­nal­ize strug­gling stu­dents with­out tack­ling school shoot­ings, risk­ing a life­time label for mar­gin­al­ized children—why it must be stopped!

• SB214, there is a com­mit­tee hear­ing today at 1pm. It is remov­ing the state from ERIC and chang­ing the author­i­ty of the State Elec­tion Board. Now remem­ber SB303 which did not make crossover was on paper bal­lots. There are only 6 days left in the leg­isla­tive ses­sion in GA and it will end at mid­night on that 40th day. SB303 is get­ting pushed into SB214. 
• ERIC is the Elec­tric Reg­is­tra­tion Infor­ma­tion Cen­ter, its mis­sion is to help states improve the accu­ra­cy of America’s vot­er rolls, increase access to vot­er reg­is­tra­tion for all eli­gi­ble cit­i­zens, reduce elec­tion costs and increase effi­cien­cies in elec­tions. Many of the states have already been removed from the sys­tem. This year law­mak­ers have been hyped up that this bill will get us out of ERIC, but wait a minute the SOS says they have some­thing up their sleeve. When Brad Raf­fensperg­er is not avail­able Gabriel Ster­ling comes to the podi­um, Gabe says that the stake is clean­ing the vot­er rolls report­ing that they are can­celling 455K vot­er reg­is­tra­tions. Today? Before the com­mit­tee hear­ing. Geor­gia is plan­ning one of the largest can­cel­la­tions of vot­er reg­is­tra­tions in US his­to­ry. We have reports that there were inac­tive vot­ers, turned active and vot­ed and then returned to inac­tive? More than half the reg­is­tra­tions sched­uled for can­cel­la­tions were iden­ti­fied by a 24 state orga­ni­za­tion called ERIC which reports when a vot­er has moved and is no longer eli­gi­ble to vote in GA. State elec­tions direc­tor Blake Evans said the size of this year’s reg­is­tra­tion removal process shows that ERIC works, and if you get ERIC out you can’t get this any­where else. Of the 455K reg­is­tra­tions most belong to peo­ple who have appeared to move. This comes as SB214 is set to remove GA from the ERIC sys­tem. Action: you need to let all the law­mak­ers lead­ers know that the AJC set up arti­cle will not stop the need for the removal of ERIC. Don’t fall for the con­fi­den­tial purge reports. 
• HB268 does noth­ing to stop school shoot­ings. It only pre­emp­tive­ly crim­i­nal­izes our most mar­gin­al­ized stu­dents. If you have a teen that strug­gles and lash­es out in behav­ior it will fol­low them as a crim­i­nal record. This bill is not about school safe­ty. It does noth­ing about school shoot­ings and school safe­ty. You do not want a bill that puts a label on chil­dren. This will give a dig­i­tal oppo research file on these chil­dren, we don’t need to crim­i­nal­ize them in the 6th grade. HB268 needs to be stopped.