The EIN is advising its network of state-level organizations to carry out challenges to voter rolls using EagleAI, a tool designed to automatically generate lists of ineligible voters. Activists within EIN’s network nationwide review these lists manually and, occasionally, conduct door-to-door visits to support their challenges—an action that has been criticized for its impact on voters’ confidence. Specialists have already highlighted issues with the EagleAI system: Minor mistakes in name spelling, such as missing punctuation, can result in names being erroneously removed from voter rolls. The software is also reportedly encountering several technical challenges. Nevertheless, a county in Georgia has already inked a deal with the company to utilize the tool in voter roll maintenance.
Confidential documents recently leaked by Documented and ProPublica reveal that one of the backers of EagleAI is Ziklag, an intensely private organization of affluent individuals devoted to advancing a clearly Christian nationalist agenda. According to an internal video obtained by ProPublica, Ziklag intends to invest $800,000 in the “EagleAI’s clean the rolls project,” with one of their objectives being to “eliminate up to one million ineligible registrations and around 280,000 ineligible voters” across Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and Wisconsin.
Mitchell and EIN are also collaborating with various other groups that are endorsing widespread challenges to voter rolls. One such group is VoteRef, which has acquired and made public voter rolls for more than 161 million voters in 31 states. Led by Gina Swoboda, a former member of the Trump campaign and current chair of the Republican Party in Arizona, VoteRef’s assertions that there are discrepancies in voter rolls have been rebuffed by state election officials as “fundamentally inaccurate,” citing significant concerns about data privacy related to the information made publicly accessible by VoteRef.
EIN is also collaborating with Check My Vote, a platform hosting openly accessible voter rolls and identifying what it deems irregularities, encouraging users to develop walk lists that activists can utilize for door-to-door visits before launching voter challenges using a downloadable template from the site.
Mitchell and EIN have not replied to a request for comment.
“These groups and the broader movement denying election results have been constructing these infrastructures, establishing these initiatives, over a multitude of months and years, in readiness for this juncture,” remarks Brendan Fischer, deputy executive director at Documented. “And now, the components are finally coming together, allowing them to commence the submission of these extensive challenges to voter qualification.”
Voter rolls are notoriously challenging to keep up-to-date, owing to federal regulations preventing individuals from being removed long after relocating from a precinct. Nonetheless, there is no substantiation supporting the assertions that this issue leads to voter fraud. Election administrators inform WIRED that the existing processes to ensure the accuracy of voter rolls are already functional.
“[We are] noticing an uptick in voter registration challenges over the past year, often originating from a single person or entity, on the basis that a voter may no longer reside at the registered address,” notes Matt Heckel, press secretary for the Pennsylvania Department of State. “These challenges are an effort to bypass the meticulously outlined list maintenance procedures stipulated by state and federal laws.”
