American Oversight and Campaign Legal Center Urge Investigation into Potential Election Law Violation in Columbia County, Georgia

On Friday, American Oversight and the Campaign Legal Center sent a letter to Georgia officials regarding a potential violation of state law in Columbia County’s agreement with a controversial voter-roll software company, EagleAI.

The letter asks Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and members of the Georgia State Election Board to investigate the potential violation. The county’s partially executed contract with EagleAI for software and other services related to the maintenance of the county’s voter registration lists could violate SB 222, a law banning the use of non-public funds for election-related costs and expenses. 

Georgia is a member of the Electronic Registration Information Center, a nonpartisan organization that helps them maintain up-to-date voting lists. Over the past two years, ERIC has become a political lightning rod, leading to a right-wing pressure campaign that pushed nine Republican-led states to abandon the system. 

As states have left ERIC, outside groups and private companies supported by election deniers have developed new products intended to replace it — including EagleAI, a database used by right-wing activists on the hunt for voter fraud. EagleAI is supported by the Election Integrity Network, an organization led by Cleta Mitchell, a longtime proponent of voting restrictions who aided President Trump in his attempt to remain in power in 2020. 

Election experts have warned about the use of EagleAI. Last year, Georgia Elections Director Blake Evans told NBC News, “EagleAI draws inaccurate conclusions and then presents them as if they are evidence of wrongdoing,” adding that the program “offers zero additional value to Georgia’s existing list maintenance procedures.” 

Despite these vulnerabilities, in December 2023, Columbia County announced its intent to enter into a contract with EagleAI to review voter challenges and conduct list maintenance activities. American Oversight obtained a software license agreement between Columbia County and EagleAI. 

The one-year contract has a $2,000 licensing fee for the software and “any necessary supporting software,” as well as “90 days of installation, training and support.” The agreement provides that “Additional Services are available upon request after approval” by the county board of elections, at hourly rates ranging from $75 to $150. 

Records obtained by the investigative watchdog organization Documented demonstrate that the $2,000 charge in the contract is a mere “nominal fee” added with the intent of evading Georgia’s recently changed law on non-public funds for election costs. 

Enacted in 2023, SB 222 bans using non-public funds — including gifts and grants — for election-related costs and expenses. Georgia law and regulations consistently treat the provision of services or goods at below-market rates as a thing of value. Accepting election-related services at below-market rates — even if the county paid a nominal fee — would likely violate Georgia law.

In a presentation to an Election Integrity Network working group in March 2023, EagleAI’s founder, Dr. Rick Richards, described his discussions with Columbia County and his intention to offer EagleAI’s services to the county without charge. 

Cleta Mitchell stated that providing EagleAI’s services for free would violate SB 222 (which, at that time, had passed the Georgia House and was pending before the Georgia Senate) and advised Richards to charge the county a small fee to “get past” the requirements of the bill. In response, Richards stated that EagleAI “can charge a nominal fee” to Georgia counties for the use of its services. 

In a May 10, 2023 email to Charlene McGowan, general counsel for the Georgia secretary of state, Richards wrote that he had planned on charging Columbia County only $1 per year, unless a fee in that amount would violate SB 222, in which case EagleAI could “certainly charge more,” suggesting that EagleAI would charge the minimum amount necessary to evade liability, rather than offering their services at fair market value.

American Oversight and the Campaign Legal Center urged Raffensperger and members of the Georgia State Elections Board to investigate whether a violation has occurred, and if so, issue a letter of instruction to Columbia County directing them to cancel their contract with EagleAI. If SB 222’s private funding ban contains such a gaping loophole, then any civic organization could easily undermine the law’s intention by charging a nominal fee to provide election-related resources and services to county governments.

Documents previously obtained by American Oversight offer additional information about the contract with EagleAI. 

• Through public records requests, we obtained a copy of the county’s agreement with EagleAI, signed by the chair of the board of elections, as well as prior versions of the agreement. 
• We obtained an email from the Columbia County elections director to Richards just two months prior to the announced contract asking about an alleged “hack” of EagleAI’s software, mentioned at a county election board meeting. 
• Richards acknowledged EagleAI servers became inoperative in October “possibly due to an attack on the Windows server software.” Richards said the company took security “very seriously” and noted that EagleAI “contains only public [sic] available data” — a shortcoming shared by interstate agreements seeking to replicate ERIC, whose secure use of information from non-public databases makes it reliable and effective.

We obtained these records as part of our ongoing investigation into states’ withdrawals from ERIC. Learn more about our investigation here and read our in-depth report outlining what we’ve uncovered here.