evidence: A day after taking office in January, Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen withdrew his state from the Electronic Registration Information Center, an interstate data-sharing compact aimed at helping states keep clean voter rolls. Asked about the move a few days later by a conservative radio host, Allen, a Republican, at first talked about privacy concerns, and claimed, inaccurately, that ERIC was launched with funding from George Soros, the liberal billionaire and a familiar bogeyman on the right. [...] None of the state officials from the other departing states has been quite as explicit as Allen was. But, while state officials and much media coverage have focused on concerns about partisanship among ERIC officials, and false conspiracy theories about Soros, some other state officials also cited ERIC’s voter outreach mandate as an important factor in their decisions to withdraw.