evidence: Formed in 2012, the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) grew to include 33 states and D.C. It identified 12.5 million people who moved to a different state from the ones in which they were registered to vote as well as almost 600,000 deceased voters still on the rolls. The database worked excellently, before fringe blogs started calling it part of a plot funded by George Soros to boost Democratic registration. ERIC, whose operating costs are paid entirely by member states, received some seed funding from Pew Charitable Trusts, which previously received support from a foundation backed by Mr. Soros, but he has never been directly involved. [...] Some GOP secretaries of state who pulled out of ERIC had publicly defended it quite recently. In February, Iowa’s Paul Pate called it "a godsend" and Ohio’s Frank LaRose described it as "one of the best fraud-fighting tools that we have." Both announced on March 17 that their states would withdraw. American Oversight, a left-leaning activist group, filed Freedom of Information Act requests, and two lawsuits, to obtain thousands of pages of emails from states that pulled out. These documents reveal employees privately acknowledging ERIC’s importance and the lack of adequate alternatives. One email showed Mr. Ashcroft’s chief of staff dismissing a blog post about the Soros connection as "horrible and misleading." Ohio’s then-director of elections emailed ERIC’s executive director when Ohio withdrew to say: "I really worked as hard as I possibly could to avoid this."