The 2024 Anti-Democracy Playbook
Harnessing the power of the election denial movement is a key component of conservatives’ 2024 strategy. Here are the tactics anti-democracy activists and political leaders are using in states across the country to suppress votes and lay the groundwork for chaos and confusion designed to undermine this year’s election.
Harnessing the power of the election denial movement is a key component of conservatives’ 2024 strategy. Far-right activists and politicians, including former President Donald Trump and his enablers, are working to convince Americans that U.S. elections are riddled with fraud and error, exploiting the same lies that underpinned the effort to overturn the 2020 results to set the stage for post-election chaos and potential challenges.
American Oversight has been tracking and investigating the anti-democracy movement as it seeks to foster doubt in democratic elections. Below, we outline how activists and partisan opportunists are using a variety of tactics to achieve these ends, from voter roll challenges, frivolous litigation, spurious fraud investigations, and voter intimidation to advancing partisan election rules, enabling certification delays, pushing for flawed hand counts, and stoking unfounded fears about illegal voting by non-citizens.
Several of these tactics have their roots in the last election, when Trump and his allies used a version of this playbook to challenge the 2020 results. In the lead-up to Election Day that year, Trump stoked fears about the increased use of mail-in voting amid the Covid-19 pandemic. State leaders used their power to boost fears about nonexistent widespread fraud by creating election integrity task forces. After President Joe Biden was declared the winner, Trump’s team launched a string of failed legal challenges, and supporters in seven states submitted fake electoral certificates falsely claiming Trump won in those states, culminating in a violent attempt to stop the certification of Biden’s victory on Jan. 6, 2021.
While the attempt to overturn a free and fair election failed, the anti-democracy movement has been fine-tuning this scheme for 2024. The Republican National Committee has taken a lead, making fear-mongering about fraud a central part of its platform by investing “massive resources” in its newly created “election integrity division” and filing dozens of lawsuits in multiple states. The RNC’s transparent effort to undermine faith in U.S. elections is buoyed by a vast network of election deniers, including government officials, lawyers, business owners, activists, conspiracy theorists, and right-wing media personalities.
Alarmingly, a substantial percentage of Republicans share this belief. A May 2021 poll found that 53% of Republicans believed that Trump remained the “true president”; two years later, 63% believed the 2020 election had been stolen. According to a 2023 poll, just 22% of Republicans were highly confident that 2024 presidential election votes would be counted correctly.
The primary objective of those following the Anti-Democracy Playbook is exacerbating distrust by pushing two false central claims. First, election deniers argue without evidence that significant numbers of people are voting illegally. This happens, they claim, because voter rolls are inaccurate, noncitizens are illegally voting en masse, and people are abusing mail-in voting and ballot drop boxes. Second, they lie about structural flaws in the administration of elections, claiming election machines are inaccurate or manipulated, certain election administrators may tamper with the results, and officials are not properly investigating discrepancies.
To address these purported issues, anti-democracy activists have pushed unnecessary and even harmful “solutions.” Right-wing groups, activists, and public officials are challenging voter registrations, encouraging new laws requiring proof of citizenship to vote, and beefing up law enforcement units set up to investigate and prosecute illegal voting. At the same time, they are encouraging hand counts, recruiting tens of thousands of poll watchers, and adopting last-minute election rule changes.
These so-called fixes are not only unnecessary; they also can make it harder for officials to administer elections while introducing barriers to voting that disproportionately affect people of color and other marginalized groups. Their inevitable failure to solve issues that don’t exist creates the impression that problems remain unsolved, bolstering lies about rife fraud and inaccurate results. And the more widely held the belief in these lies, the more likely their adherents will be to support desperate, drastic, and dangerous attempts to overturn our democracy.
Table of Contents
The Tactics
Voter Registration Challenges
Election officials across the country have been bombarded with voter registration challenges aimed at removing people from voter rolls. Underlying these challenges, which disproportionately target voters of color, is the false notion that the rolls are riddled with inaccuracies that open the door to mass voter fraud. The demand for voter registration purges has become so high that the U.S. Department of Justice recently issued guidance outlining how and when voters can be removed. Many of the challenges have come from activists and private interest groups — including many of the same people involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 election — who see an opportunity to magnify distrust by becoming involved in voter roll maintenance and election administration.
Groups and private companies supported by election deniers have also developed new products that experts warn will make it easier for voter-fraud vigilantes to challenge and threaten the voting rights of thousands. The Voter Reference Foundation, which is run by Gina Swoboda, the head of Arizona’s Republican Party and a former organizer of Trump’s 2020 campaign in the state, runs an online project called VoteRef.com designed to be a resource for voter-fraud activists who want to inspect voter rolls. EagleAI, another database used by activists on the hunt for voter fraud, is supported by the Election Integrity Network, an organization led by Cleta Mitchell, a longtime proponent of voting restrictions who aided Trump in his attempts to remain in power in 2020. IV3, an app developed by voter-fraud alarmist group True the Vote, enables users to submit voter registration challenges to local election offices. The group has claimed that nearly 7,000 people have used IV3 to contest more than half a million registrations in more than 1,000 counties.
Voting-rights and privacy advocates have expressed concern that these platforms could be used to compromise individual privacy, intimidate voters, cause mass cancellations of voting registrations, and inundate local election offices with burdensome, time-consuming, and inaccurate challenges. And as individuals and outside groups have launched mass voter challenges, some states have publicized voter list maintenance work that is already required by federal and state laws. Election experts have warned that presenting this routine process as part of preventing illegal voting could further create the false impression that elections are undermined by widespread voter fraud.
The proliferation of citizen vote challenges was enabled by the months-long effort by election-denial activists and conservative leaders in several states to dismantle the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a nonpartisan organization designed to ensure accurate rolls. In 2022 and 2023, a misinformation campaign led nine states to abandon their participation in ERIC. Election experts and voting rights advocates have remained concerned about the impact of these hasty ERIC departures, particularly as activists and groups with a demonstrated antipathy toward widening access to the ballot attempt to fill the void.
Politically Motivated Litigation
In the weeks following the 2020 election, Trump’s lawyers — with the help of several state attorneys general — launched a barrage of legal challenges to the election results, filing dozens of lawsuits alleging voter fraud and arguing that various measures that facilitated voting during the pandemic had been improperly enacted.
This election, the RNC has gotten an earlier start, launching dozens of legal challenges months before the election and appointing Christina Bobb, who was active in partisan and baseless post-2020 election investigations, as its senior counsel for “election integrity.” “We currently have 78 lawsuits out right now in 23 states across this country to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat,” Lara Trump said in March in an interview with Fox News’ Maria Bartiromo. These lawsuits occupy courts’ time and resources, serve as a vehicle for misinformation, and further amplify election denialism by manufacturing legitimacy through the legal process.
While the specifics of the RNC’s lawsuits vary, the challenges center on many of the false claims promoted by election deniers, such as allegations that states are not properly maintaining voter rolls or administering elections. The RNC has sued the Michigan secretary of state as well as the Nevada secretary of state and five other Nevada election officials, and a lawsuit in North Carolina claims that inaccuracies in the state’s voter rolls could permit noncitizens to illegally vote. The RNC has also sued Detroit for allegedly not hiring enough Republican poll workers.
Republicans are also filing lawsuits to challenge laws protecting the right to vote. In Arizona, the state Republican Party sued the governor over two measures that expanded voter registration outreach and access to ballot drop-off locations. Two high-ranking Arizona Republicans also filed a lawsuit challenging election administration rules set forth in the state’s new Elections Procedures Manual; a judge dismissed the lawsuit in May. In Nevada and Mississippi, the RNC challenged laws permitting mail-in ballots to be counted after Election Day if the ballots are postmarked before polls close.
Right-wing organizations have filed similar lawsuits. The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), a right-wing legal group, filed lawsuits in South Carolina, Minnesota, and Wisconsin in attempts to gain access to the states’ voter rolls. As of mid-September, at least 36 cases related to registration lists had been filed in 19 states. United Sovereign Americans has filed lawsuits in Florida, Maryland, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas challenging the accuracy of each states’ registration lists. In October, one of United Sovereign Americans’ founders told USA Today that the group is already planning to sue over this year’s election results.
Even when unsuccessful, these lawsuits heighten the perception that elections are rife with fraud, serving to motivate voters, drive fundraising, and sow the seeds of chaos before and after Election Day. If he loses, Trump could use these lawsuits to bolster the same unfounded argument he advanced in 2020 — that election procedures are so flawed that the results should not be accepted.
Anti-Immigrant Conspiracy Theories
Studies have found that voting in federal elections by noncitizens is “vanishingly rare.” But the specter of votes being illegally cast by noncitizens has become a new conservative talking point, as election deniers advance false, xenophobic claims that voter rolls are inflated with non-U.S. citizens.
Former President Trump has repeatedly made the false and racist claim that noncitizens are coming to the United States en masse to illegally vote. The RNC’s election integrity division has also alleged, without evidence, that illegal votes by immigrants could invalidate the election results, and has sent letters to the secretaries of state in eight states, claiming — also without evidence — that they allowed noncitizens to vote in federal elections. Just weeks before Election Day, at least eight lawsuits have been filed by Trump allies that allege inaccurate voter rolls could permit noncitizens to illegally vote. Conservative groups with close ties to the election denial movement have also diligently promoted this lie. The Election Integrity Network, United Sovereign Americans, the Only Citizens Vote Coalition, Americans for Citizens Voting, America First Legal, True the Vote, the Heritage Foundation, and others have been at the forefront of the messaging campaign.
Meanwhile, activists have pressured government officials to adopt measures to fix what is a largely nonexistent problem. Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson have pushed for a bill banning non-citizens from voting; Johnson even threatened to shut down the government if the bill was not passed. A recent Arizona law requires people registering to vote to provide proof of citizenship. This November, eight states — Idaho, Iowa, Kentucky, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Wisconsin — will have constitutional amendments on their ballots intended to limit voting to American citizens.
If adopted, these measures could make it harder for legally registered people to vote, as many may not have easy access to the documents required to prove citizenship. And even if the measures fail, the anti-immigrant rhetoric and fearmongering can chill voter turnout, particularly in communities of color, and among naturalized citizens. Voter roll purges designed to remove noncitizens from voter rolls also risk improperly canceling legal registrations, including for recently naturalized citizens who are eligible to vote. And like lawsuits based on flimsy or nonexistent evidence, the rhetoric further boosts claims that elections are rife with fraud and the results are not accurate. As the Campaign Legal Center’s Jonathan Diaz told NBC News, “Creating doubt in the mind of the public and undermin[ing] the electoral system … possibly makes it easier for the public to swallow attempts to overturn the results.”
Voter Intimidation
Election deniers claim rampant fraud is not limited to voter registration, but that it also happens at polling precincts and ballot drop boxes — beliefs amplified by Trump, who in September said he wanted to investigate and prosecute election officials he believes are “corrupt” and encouraged police officers to look for voter fraud.
To “solve” this purported issue, adherents to the Anti-Democracy Playbook have recruited thousands of poll watchers to conduct massive surveillance and have pushed restrictions on drop boxes. In Texas, for example, the attorney general has sued and harassed local election offices over their voter registration efforts. During a primary election in July, police in a Milwaukee suburb had to remove two poll observers who were being disruptive and challenging every absentee ballot. These efforts and the surrounding rhetoric raise concerns about voter intimidation and the potential for violence against election workers.
In March, a Trump campaign spokesperson promised that there would be “soldiers — poll watchers, on the ground, who are making sure that there are no irregularities and fraud like we saw in the last election cycle.” This summer, the RNC launched a massive campaign to recruit 100,000 volunteers in 15 states to monitor polling places in the November election. The effort apparently succeeded: Trump’s campaign and allies claim they recruited about 175,000 people to be poll workers and poll watchers. The party has also reportedly established hotlines for poll watchers to report issues they believe they encounter, with perceived problems potentially resulting in legal action. In some places, the RNC has recruited volunteers from suburban areas to monitor election locations in urban areas, pulling a population with a higher percentage of white residents to observe — and potentially intimidate — a population with higher percentages of people of color. True the Vote is reportedly attempting to enlist law enforcement to assist with election surveillance.
The RNC has also had help from the nationwide network of voter-fraud alarmists. For example, Cleta Mitchell has hosted workshops promoting the importance of poll watching, and told right-wing activist and former Trump White House official Steve Bannon that her work is “arming the army of patriots.” Mitchell also reportedly influenced North Carolina legislators to include poll watcher provisions in SB 747, a 2023 election bill that changes several facets of the state’s election law, including mail-in ballot deadlines, voter identification requirements, and other provisions that election experts warn will make it harder to vote.
The consequences of this strategy are clear in light of the recent past. Before the 2022 midterms, right-wing groups pushing inaccurate claims about 2020 fraud recruited tens of thousands to monitor election sites. Voters and election workers reported feeling intimidated and harassed by observers who reportedly filmed people dropping off their ballots at vote-by-mail locations, tried to see personal voter information, encroached on voters’ physical space, and demanded access to all areas of a voting precinct.
This “army” of monitors can disrupt overburdened election offices and worsen the harassment election workers are already contending with. According to the Brennan Center, 38% of election workers experienced threats, harassment, or abuse on the job, and more than 50% were afraid for their safety. The increased scrutiny of polling places — and the accompanying safety risks — have prompted schools across the country to opt to not serve as polling locations.
The increased presence of poll watchers recruited under a misinformation banner contributes to the atmosphere of distrust while also having a deleterious effect on voter turnout in communities less likely to be conservative. “When you come in with a conspiratorial mindset, and not a lot of knowledge about how things work, it’s very easy to misconstrue what’s going on and to act in bad faith,” election law expert Rick Hasen told Time in 2022.
Partisan Election Administration
Since 2020, multiple states have proposed or passed measures that grant partisan officials more power over election administration, including by lessening secretaries of states’ supervision of elections or shifting certain responsibilities to partisan bodies like election boards or state legislatures. Some proposals would shift appointed election administration positions to elected roles, grant lawmakers the ability to overturn election results, and strip state officials of authority, such as in Wisconsin, where conservative legislators have repeatedly attempted — and failed — to remove the state’s top nonpartisan election official, who has been the target of conspiracy theories.
The danger is obvious: Leaders with deeply partisan interests could make decisions that impact perceptions about the reliability of elections and could even use their positions to influence election challenges. “Inserting partisan actors into election administration … is really a worrying trend when you understand it in the context of what happened in 2020,” Protect Democracy counsel Jessica Marsden told ABC News in August 2021, as such proposals began cropping up across the country.
In the years since 2020, several changes have already been implemented. For example, North Carolina created new state and county election boards whose members are appointed by the state’s General Assembly rather than the governor. The new boards have an even number of appointees from each party but no guidelines on how to resolve a deadlock, including on issues like certification or ballot challenges. In Texas, two laws enacted in 2023 paved the way for the state to potentially take over election administration in Harris County, the state’s most populous county.
There has been no shortage in 2024 of last-ditch attempts at rule changes that confer partisan advantage or bolster the voter-fraud myth. In Georgia, the State Election Board (SEB) recently considered a bevy of controversial changes that would go into effect just weeks before the election. In August, the SEB approved a rule requiring local election officials to conduct “reasonable inquiries” before certifying election results, and advanced another requiring workers in each polling place to hand-count ballots. Trump has lavished praise on the three SEB board members who make up the far-right majority pushing these rules, calling them “pit bulls fighting for honesty, transparency and victory,” and Cleta Mitchell has provided similar adulation. One of those members, Janice Johnston, reportedly worked with Trump allies to draft the certification rule. And the Georgia GOP, in apparent coordination with the RNC, reportedly provided Rick Jeffares, another member, with a rule requiring election boards to post daily ballot counts online — one of two rules advanced by the SEB during a hastily convened July meeting that violated the state’s Open Meetings Act. (Following American Oversight’s lawsuit and motion for a preliminary injunction, the SEB rescinded the rules, and reconsidered them at a subsequent meeting.) In October, a Fulton County Superior Court judge struck down seven of the board’s recent rules, determining they were “illegal, unconstitutional and void.”
In September, conservatives in Nebraska made a last-minute push to change the way the state’s Electoral College votes are distributed, a partisan move that ultimately failed. Unlike the vast majority of other states, Nebraska’s electoral votes are awarded by congressional district. The proposed change — which received support from Gov. Jim Pillen, Sen. Lindsey Graham, and Trump — would have adopted a winner-take-all system, almost certainly increasing the number of electoral votes Trump would earn in November.
In August, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that a new Arizona law requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote could take effect, raising concerns about additional uncertainty regarding the “Purcell principle,” which warns federal courts to avoid permitting changes to voting rules close to an election. As ACLU Voting Rights Project Director Sophia Lin Lakin told CNN, the ruling “creates a lot of anxiety that the rule could be applied in a way that’s inconsistent and tips the scales.”
Empowering partisan actors to oversee elections could allow them to legitimize baseless election challenges or otherwise sow chaos and doubt. Moreover, last-minute changes risk confusing voters, lowering turnout, and tilting the playing field to one candidate.
Certification Delays
The process by which local and state election officials certify the accuracy of an election and finalize the results has been targeted by anti-democracy activists who have launched a sprawling effort to allow election officials to refuse to certify. Embedded in certification delays is the idea that elections are so susceptible to widespread fraud or error that election officials need additional time to investigate the results. Routine, minor discrepancies between voter totals and ballot counts transform into malfeasance, aggravating doubts about election integrity. Since 2020, officials in eight states have refused to certify results in at least 20 instances, citing vague and unfounded concerns about voting equipment, errors that did not impact the election results, and election laws they consider unfair.
These refusals have been validated by new measures permitting certification delays and lawsuits challenging the certification process. Experts have pointed out the danger of partisan officials using that latitude to cast doubt on or to subvert elections that don’t go the way they or those influencing them want. Even if courts eventually force officials to certify, the damage is still done: Delays give more fuel to conspiracy theories and further damage voter confidence.
Delaying certification could also put states in danger of missing federal law’s Dec. 11 deadline, which could leave room for legal challenges that exacerbate chaos, confusion, and doubt about the results. This risk is amplified by the many election deniers — at least 200 in seven swing states, according to States United — who are running for office, hold key leadership positions, or serve on county and state election boards.
Hand Counts
The misguided push for hand counts is based on the conspiracy theory that electronic voting machines produce inaccurate vote tallies because of errors or tampering. The solution, right-wing activists claim, is to abandon machines and instead count ballots by hand.
Hand-count disciples have had the support of prominent election deniers, including those with ties to Trump allies who sought to overturn the 2020 election results. Voting conspiracy theorist and MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell is one of the biggest supporters of hand counts, reportedly funding some efforts and featuring hand-count advocates on his various platforms. Mark Cook, a self-described IT expert from Colorado, has been traversing the country in an RV as part of his “hand count road show,” a series of presentations designed to foment distrust in results and convince local officials to adopt hand counts.
Activists have managed to convince some jurisdictions — typically small or rural areas that overwhelmingly voted for former Trump in 2020 — to adopt the practice. Local officials in Missouri, Nevada, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin elected to hand-count ballots in their midterm or primary elections. Earlier this year, more than a dozen legislators in the Ohio House backed a bill that would allow counties to hand-count ballots instead of using machines. Most recently, the Georgia State Election Board passed a new rule that requires each of the state’s voting precincts to hand-count ballots before certifying election results; in October, a state judge put the requirement on hold because it was adopted so close to Election Day.
Election experts warn that hand counts are time-consuming, costly, and less accurate than voting machines. Texas’ Gillespie County Republican Party counted ballots by hand for its March 2024 primary; there were errors in results in nearly every precinct, and in May it was reported that the labor costs of the hand count were on pace to be twice as high as those of the 2020 primary.
Pushing for hand counts and decrying the use of electronic machines is yet another way of feeding the false belief that our elections are not secure. It provides “additional grounds for calling into question the results of elections when there are no valid grounds,” former American Oversight Executive Director Heather Sawyer told the Guardian in April 2024. “There’s no good reason to do it. And there’s lots of room for mischief and problems.”
State Voter Fraud Investigations
Since the 2020 election, a handful of conservative states have devoted time, money, and resources into creating state offices focused on “election integrity” that lend false credence to the myth of widespread fraud and drain taxpayer money by using law enforcement resources to suppress the vote.
For example, in April 2022, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis signed a law, which his office helped draft, creating an Office of Election Crimes and Security, a police force housed within the Florida Department of State. Tasked with combating voter fraud, the office has, since its creation, targeted people with prior felony convictions, many of whom had been incorrectly informed by official government entities that they were eligible to vote following the passage of a 2018 ballot initiative. While Texas’s Election Integrity Division has ballooned in size since the 2020 election, it has — as expected — found few cases of actual voter fraud. Recently, Attorney General Ken Paxton used the office’s voter integrity unit to conduct raids on Latino voting activists. Several other states, including Arizona, Virginia, Florida, Texas, and Georgia, have created or attempted to create election integrity units in recent years.
In March, Lara Trump warned the RNC would use its own “election integrity division” to prosecute fraud “to the fullest extent of the law.” While such offices and law enforcement units have failed to prosecute — much less uncover evidence of — instances of voter fraud in any significant numbers, their mere existence inflates false concerns in a bid to gain political support.
In the States
Arizona
Voter Registration Challenges
- Ziklag, an organization of wealthy Christians, created Operation Checkmate to challenge registrations and potentially purge more than a million voters from rolls across the country. The organization’s founder has paid special attention to Arizona’s Maricopa County. American Oversight has filed public records requests to learn more about Ziklag and its voter challenges.
- American Oversight obtained records that show state Sens. John Kavanagh and Wendy Rogers asked Gina Swoboda, the head of Arizona’s Republican Party, about Omega4America, a voter data monitoring software being pushed by voter fraud activists.
Politically Motivated Litigation
- The Arizona Republican Party sued Gov. Katie Hobbs over two 2023 executive orders that expanded access to ballot drop-off locations and voting registration. A judge dismissed the lawsuit in September.
- In January, two high-ranking Arizona Republicans filed a lawsuit challenging election administration rules set forth in the state’s recently adopted elections manual, which says that if a county doesn’t certify by the state deadline, then the statewide canvass won’t include those votes. A judge dismissed the lawsuit in May.
- In October, America First Legal (AFL) — a right-wing group founded by former Trump administration officials — sued Arizona Secretary of State Adrian Fontes for withholding the names of voters who had been improperly registered to vote because of a glitch in the Motor Vehicle Division’s driver’s license database.
Anti-Immigrant Conspiracy Theories
- In 2022, Arizona passed a law (HB 2492) that reestablished a requirement that all voters provide proof of citizenship. The law will disproportionately affect Native Americans and people of color in Arizona.
- Two voting rights groups, Mi Familia Vota and Voto Latino, filed lawsuits to challenge the law. In February, a federal district court struck down parts of the law, leading the RNC and Republican state legislators to appeal the ruling in May. The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in July that the law could take effect.
- In September 2024, a Maricopa County election official asked the Arizona Supreme Court to bar almost 100,000 longtime residents who had not proven their citizenship from voting in state and local elections. The court ruled the residents could vote in these races.
- In September, America First Legal, which in July had sent letters on behalf of the group Arizona Free Enterprise Club urging Arizona counties to clean their voter rolls, sued all 15 counties in the state, claiming they had not properly purged non-citizens from their rolls.
Voter Intimidation
- In August, the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC) informed Arizona’s secretary of state and attorney general that it intended to create guidelines for monitoring ballot drop boxes. Conservative activists have reportedly followed and filmed voter registration sites, including those focused on registering Latinos.
- Harassment of poll workers in Arizona has been such an issue that several schools declined to be polling places this year. In one instance, a Maricopa County official threatened to “lynch” County Recorder Stephen Richer, saying Richer did not “believe in the principles we believe in.”
- In August, an Arizona judge stopped the enforcement of a law that banned yelling at or taking photos of voters near polling places, claiming the law violated the First Amendment.
Certification Delays
- In September, a judge ruled that Arizona could not enforce a rule allowing it to certify election results if a county refused to do so.
- In Pinal County, Kevin Cavanaugh — a county supervisor who is one of the officials responsible for certifying the county’s elections — accused his colleagues of manipulating election results after he lost his 2024 primary for county sheriff. An independent audit that cost the county $150,000 found no evidence of fraud.
- Following the 2022 election, two members of the Cochise County Board of Supervisors, Peggy Judd and Tom Crosby, refused to certify the county’s election results by the state’s deadline, leading Gov. Hobbs to sue the board and a court to order the board to complete its canvass.
- In November 2023, Judd and Crosby were indicted by a state grand jury and charged with conspiring to delay the counting of the 2022 votes and interfering with the Arizona secretary of state’s ability to complete the statewide canvass. In October, Judd pleaded guilty for her failure to canvass the election as part of a plea deal. Election distrust remains prevalent in the county.
- American Oversight sued Cochise County for records related to election administration, settling its lawsuit in October after the release of thousands of pages of records.
Hand Counts
- Cochise County Supervisors Judd and Crosby’s delay in certifying the 2022 midterms came after the board had voted to hand-count all ballots, a move that was successfully challenged in court.
- Records obtained by American Oversight through its litigation include communications in which Judd and Crosby advocated for hand counts despite doubts and confusion about how the process would be implemented. Other communications show state lawmakers voicing their support for the hand count.
- Arizona Senate Majority Leader Sonny Borrelli has been a vocal proponent of banning electronic voting machines and adopting unreliable hand counts. A June 2023 email obtained by American Oversight shows Borrelli responding “HAHAHA” to a letter that appears to be from the secretary of state expressing concerns about hand counts.
- Pinal County’s Kevin Cavanaugh has also pushed for wider usage of hand counts. American Oversight obtained records from Pinal County that include numerous requests from activists for officials to consider hand counts. The documents show Cavanaugh repeatedly asserted his support.
State Voter Fraud Investigations
- Arizona created an election integrity fraud unit in 2019. From its establishment through 2021, the unit filed just 17 election-related cases. In 2023, recently elected state Attorney General Kris Mayes changed the unit to instead focus on protecting voting rights.
Florida
Voter Registration Challenges
- In Marion County, Fla., this summer, a woman who said she was connected to voter fraud alarmist group True the Vote urged the county’s supervisor of elections to investigate 2,500 voter registrations and potentially remove them from the rolls. The elections supervisor could not find a single valid challenge in the list.
- The Florida Department of State recently asked county election officials to review registrations and potentially remove roughly 10,000 voters from rolls based on information from EagleAI, the unreliable voter-roll software.
- American Oversight obtained documents that show Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd forwarded to his staff challenges submitted by an “anonymous tipster” calling themselves Totes Legit Votes.
Politically Motivated Litigation
- United Sovereign Americans, a Missouri-based far-right legal group, sued Florida and several other parties in August. The lawsuit alleged that the state’s voter rolls were inaccurate and that Florida incorrectly tabulated the 2022 midterm results.
Voter Intimidation
- With the aid of “election integrity” activists, conservative lawmakers killed a 2023 provision that would have increased penalties for harassing or intimidating election workers.
Partisan Election Administration
- A 2023 law, SB 7050, created new requirements for groups that register people to vote and imposes stiff penalties — as much as $250,000 — if groups do not follow the rules. This has led some organizations, such as the League of Women Voters, to decide not to hold voter registration drives.
- A 2021 law, SB 90, requires voters to re-register every election cycle to receive mail ballots. As a result, the number of mail-in ballots requested has significantly dropped.
- The same law also required election staffers to monitor ballot drop box locations during early voting hours, resulting in the removal of some drop boxes and eliminating the ability to drop ballots off after work hours. Election experts believe these restrictions will make it harder for people, especially Black voters, to cast their ballots.
- SB 90 also imposed new voter-ID requirements to vote by mail.
Certification Delays
- During the August primary election, a minor “glitch” caused election supervisor websites to crash. In response, members of the Santa Rosa County Republican Executive Committee contested the certification of the primary election and demanded a forensic audit.
State Voter Fraud Investigations
- American Oversight obtained spreadsheets clarifying how many hours staff within the OECS worked in 2023 and 2024.
- Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis established the Office of Election Crimes and Security (OECS) in 2022 to prosecute people accused of voter fraud.
- While the office claimed in July 2023 that it had made 1,479 criminal referrals to law enforcement, only 13 of these referrals were reported to have resulted in convictions.
- Many of the individuals targeted by OECS were people with prior felony convictions who had been incorrectly informed by official government entities that they were eligible to vote following the passage of the 2018 Amendment 4 ballot initiative.
Georgia
Voter Registration Challenges
- Since the 2020 election, Georgia has adopted multiple laws that make it easier for activists to challenge voter registrations. In 2021, Georgia passed SB 202, an election bill that allows any individual to challenge an unrestricted number of voter registrations. Following this law’s passage, election administration offices in the state were flooded with voter registration challenges.
- According to ProPublica in July 2023, almost 90% of the challenges submitted after SB 202 went into effect— roughly 89,000 challenges — had been submitted by six people.
- In 2024, Georgia passed SB 189, which created criteria that local election board members can use to evaluate challenges. The legislation placed no limits on what evidence can be submitted or on how many challenges an individual can place at one time.
- The law also permits election boards to purge voters from its rolls up to 45 days before an election. Democracy Docket has argued that this provision could violate federal law, and American Oversight filed public records requests related to the law.
- Election experts have warned that making it so easy to challenge registrations can create chaos for election officials, intimidate voters, and disproportionately impact Black Georgians.
- In the lead-up to November, election officials across the state have received mass voter challenges, often lodged with the aid of untrustworthy tools like EagleAI and True the Vote’s IV3. Cobb County recently rejected many EagleAI-based voter challenges.
- The state launched a voter challenge portal that has had significant errors, poses security risks, and could expose people’s personal information.
- The head of the Republican Party in Bibb County challenged dozens of people’s voter registration status. Now, the voters have to prove their residency to stay on the voter roll.
- At least 4,800 people have had their voter registrations challenged in Forsyth County this year.
- As of late September, counties in the Atlanta metro area had dismissed more than 45,000 voter challenges since July 1.
- In September, the State Election Board (SEB) ordered an investigation into eight county election boards after “election integrity” activists alleged their challenges were being improperly dismissed.
- In December 2023, Columbia County announced its intent to contract EagleAI to monitor its voter rolls, despite criticism of the tool.
- American Oversight obtained a software license agreement between Columbia County and EagleAI, and a signed contract.
- 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.” Records obtained by Documented demonstrated that the $2,000 charge in the contract is a mere “nominal fee” intended to evade SB 222, a 2023 law that 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.
- In March, American Oversight and Campaign Legal Center sent a letter to Georgia officials requesting investigation into this contract.
- American Oversight also obtained SEB communications regarding EagleAI, including an email that suggests the SEB encouraged Columbia County to contract EagleAI.
Politically Motivated Litigation
- The RNC intervened in a lawsuit filed by New Georgia Project and the A. Phillip Randolph Institute that challenged “repeated, unlawful removal of eligible voters” from voter rolls by the SEB, secretary of state, and six counties.
- The state GOP intervened in American Oversight’s Open Meetings Act lawsuit — despite the suit having nothing to do with election law.
- In October, Republican Party officials in Georgia sued Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, challenging the state’s use of Dominion Voting Systems and alleging the voting machines are not adequately secure. A judge quickly dismissed the case.
- Two right-wing activists sued Fulton County over the county’s voter rolls. They later withdrew the lawsuit.
- United Sovereign Americans sued Raffensperger, state Attorney General Christopher Carr, and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, alleging that the state’s voter rolls are inaccurate.
- America First Policy Institute filed a lawsuit on behalf of a Fulton County elections board member arguing that board members should be permitted to reject certifying elections.
Anti-Immigrant Conspiracy Theories
- In July, Secretary Raffensperger announced a new audit to ensure only citizens are registered to vote.
- In August, the SEB approved sending all counties a sign that states “U.S. CITIZENS ONLY,” urging officials to display them at polling locations. “These signs aren’t just unnecessary,” American Oversight told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, “they also contribute to the harmful rhetoric that has a chilling effect on legal voting among immigrants and can lead to violence.”
Voter Intimidation
- Before the SEB passed controversial laws regarding election certification and hand counts, it held an illegal meeting in July where the board advanced two rules, including a provision that would have increased the number of partisan poll monitors.
- American Oversight sued the SEB over this illegal meeting, alleging that the board violated the state’s Open Meetings Act. After we filed the lawsuit, the SEB withdrew the rules, advancing the rules in August at a properly noticed meeting. In October, these rules were struck down by a Fulton County judge.
Partisan Election Administration
- Controlled by three Trump-allied right-wingers, the State Election Board has passed last-minute election rule changes. “The makeup of this board has changed from being a board that followed the rule of law and made decisions based on what state and federal law required, and what was best for running elections, to one that is being driven by far-right-wing narratives,” Sara Tindall Ghazal — the lone Democrat on the SEB — told the Guardian.
- A rule that requires county election boards to post daily online ballot counts on their websites, proposed by the SEB during its illegal July 12 meeting, had been provided to board member Rick Jeffares by Georgia GOP Chair Josh McKoon in apparent coordination with the Republican National Committee. American Oversight obtained SEB communications regarding the illegal meeting held on July 12.
- A similar version of a rule that aims to increase the number of partisan poll monitors observing ballot counting at Georgia tabulation centers was reportedly also shared by the state’s Republican Party.
- Emails obtained by Rolling Stone and American Doom also show that SEB member Janice Johnston worked with Trump allies to draft the rule that allows officials to delay certification, which was also reportedly supported by the Election Integrity Network.
- Georgia state and county officials have urged SEB to stop making so many last-minute changes, and even Republicans have signaled concerns.
- Two Republicans filed a lawsuit to challenge some of the SEB’s recent rule changes. In October, a Fulton County Superior Court judge ruled in their favor, striking down seven recent rules, including requirements for hand counts and the online posting of daily ballot counts, increases in the number of partisan poll monitors, and the “reasonable inquiry” period before certification.
- Gov. Kemp’s office asked the attorney general’s office for advice about whether Kemp could remove SEB members; the AG declined to clarify.
- In August, the SEB voted to reinvestigate Fulton County’s handling of the 2020 election. In an opinion, Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr wrote that SEB cannot force this reinvestigation.
- Records obtained by American Oversight also show SEB member Janice Johnston expressed interest in voter registration challenges as well as monitoring county election boards’ communications.
Certification Delays
- Since 2020, at least 19 election board members from nine counties in Georgia have refused to certify election results.
- In one instance, a member of the Spalding County Election board publicly claimed he refused to certify the November 2023 election — while helping certification behind the scenes.
- Fulton County Election Board member Julie Adams, a member of the Election Integrity Network, abstained from a vote to certify the May primary election.
- Adams filed a lawsuit arguing that county election board members should be permitted to reject certification. The lawsuit was backed by the America First Policy Institute.
- In October, a Fulton County judge ruled against Adams, determining that Georgia law requires county election boards to certify.
- In November, a judge rejected Adams’ demand for more documents in order to certify.
- In August, the SEB passed a rule allowing officials to conduct “reasonable inquiry” before certifying. Although some Georgia officials have insisted that the courts will not permit certification delays to occur, the rule still raises concerns that the provision will feed doubt about the results and could lead to post-election chaos. The rule, which was struck down by a Fulton County Judge in October, was especially concerning in light of recent reporting that the Georgia Election Integrity Network has been coordinating with Georgia officials on how to undermine the results of the election.
- Follow the Law, a group with ties to election deniers, ran ads in Georgia supporting the controversial certification rule.
Hand Counts
- In September, the SEB passed a new rule that requires each of the state’s voting precincts to hand-count ballots and to make sure the vote totals match machine tallies prior to the certification deadline.
- In October, a Fulton County Superior Court judge put the hand-count requirement on hold because it was adopted so close to Election Day. The judge determined that if implemented, the rule would create “administrative chaos” because so few poll workers would have been trained.
State Voter Fraud Investigations
- In October 2020, American Oversight’s investigation found that the state’s “absentee ballot fraud task force,” created by Secretary Raffensperger in April 2020, had met only once — six months before the 2020 election.
Michigan
Voter Registration Challenges
- In the spring of 2024, a “voter integrity” database called Check My Vote published Michigan’s publicly available voter file online. The program identifies alleged irregularities that activists can use to challenge registrations. The Michigan chapter of the Election Integrity Network used the data to conduct door-to-door canvassing and to file voter challenges.
- Records obtained by American Oversight include a voter challenge filed this spring in Wayne County by an individual who appears to be affiliated with Election Integrity Force, a group that assigns volunteers to voting precincts to examine the rolls and push for removals. Wayne County solicited advice from an election specialist in another county about how to respond to the challenge.
Politically Motivated Litigation
- In March, the RNC sued Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson alleging that the state’s voter rolls are inaccurate.
- In July, Trump’s campaign and the RNC sued Gov. Gretchen Whitmer over state rules that allow voter registration at government offices.
- In August, the RNC filed a lawsuit in Michigan claiming that the Election Commission of Detroit hired more Democrats than Republicans to be poll workers.
- In September, the RNC sued Benson again, alleging that the state’s guidance for absentee ballots is inadequate.
- In October, the RNC filed yet another lawsuit against Benson, challenging the ability of U.S. citizens living abroad to vote.
- A PILF lawsuit filed in September 2021 alleged that Benson permitted dead people to stay on the state’s voter rolls. The case was dismissed this year.
- United Sovereign Citizens filed a lawsuit alleging that the primary election was improperly certified.
Voter Intimidation
- As right-wing groups spread conspiracy theories about incorrectly administered elections and fraud, Michigan clerks have faced high levels of harassment. This intense scrutiny has made it difficult to find people willing to run for local election positions, leaving critical vacancies.
- Election-denial activists have encouraged “constitutional sheriffs” — adherents to a fringe theory that holds that sheriffs have more law enforcement power in their home counties than any other government body or individual — to further undermine faith in U.S. democracy. True the Vote has contacted sheriffs and asked them to monitor drop boxes in the states.
- Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf has crusaded against voting machines and supposed fraud. American Oversight obtained communications between Seth Keshel, a data analyst who has peddled unsubstantiated claims that the 2020 election was rigged, and Leaf’s office.
Certification Delays
- In 2020, Trump and RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel called two members of the Wayne County Board of Canvassers to ask that they not certify the 2020 election. The RNC also pushed the State Board of Canvassers to delay certification.
- In 2024, the Delta County Board of Canvassers initially refused to certify the results of a May 7 recall election, only certifying after it received a letter from the state elections director. Records obtained by American Oversight show one of the canvassers who initially refused to certify the election asked the Delta and Barry county sheriffs to conduct a forensic audit.
- More than half of county canvassers serving in Michigan were not serving in 2020, adding additional concern that the new canvassers will be especially vulnerable to outside pressure to delay certification. Some canvassers still reject the results of the 2020 election and are affiliated with election denial groups.
- After a Kalamazoo County canvasser initially stated he might refuse to certify the November election results, the ACLU of Michigan sued him. The lawsuit prompted him to sign a sworn affidavit promising to certify the results.
Hand Counts
- In October, two local election officials in Michigan were removed from overseeing the election after informing state officials that they planned to hand count ballots in November.
Nevada
Voter Registration Challenges
- Using data from EagleAI, the right-wing group Pigpen Project has submitted mass voter challenges in Nevada.
- American Oversight obtained records from White Pine County and Elko County that show the founder of Pigpen Project having challenged dozens of voter registrations in the county.
- American Oversight also obtained records that include an email from a voter whose registration was wrongfully challenged by Pigpen Project’s founder. “Does the person challenging us understand what APO and AE mean?!” the voter asked. “We did not move to another state!! APO is Army Post Office. AE is American Forces Europe. While we serve overseas, we retain our residency in the state we just left.”.
Politically Motivated Litigation
- In March, the RNC sued five Nevada election officials and the Nevada secretary of state, alleging that the state’s voter rolls were improperly maintained. In September, the Trump campaign and the RNC filed another lawsuit in Nevada, alleging it had failed to ensure that only citizens are registered to vote.
- In June, PILF sued the Clark County registrar of voters, alleging that individuals used commercial addresses for their voter registration in almost 90 instances that violated the law. PILF dropped the lawsuit in August.
- Citizen Outreach Foundation, a right-wing group, sued several counties in Nevada alleging that voter rolls were inaccurate. The group dropped its lawsuits in October.
Anti-Immigrant Conspiracy Theories
- In September, the Trump campaign and the RNC sued Nevada Secretary of State Francisco Aguilar, the state Democratic Party, and the Democratic National Committee, alleging that the state had failed to ensure that only citizens are registered to vote.
Certification Delays
- In July, Washoe County commissioners voted against certifying a recount of the primary election results. After the Nevada secretary of state and attorney general took legal action, the commissioners certified. Election experts have said the debacle undermined faith in the state’s election process.
Hand Counts
- Nevada’s Nye County hand-counted mail ballots in 2022 despite challenges from voting rights groups, and the debate over hand counts resurfaced in the county in 2024.
- Hand count procedures drafted by officials in 2022 created a “very, very high” error rate.
- After considering hand counts for the November election, Elko County ultimately decided to use ballot machines. The county has indicated it will reconsider hand counts in the future.
- American Oversight obtained records that show a behind-the-scenes look at the county’s test hand count, including a recount tally sheet and a document entitled “Precinct Hand Count Procedures.” The documents also indicate that an Elko County volunteer served as a liaison between the county commissioners and Cause of America, an “election integrity” group funded by Mike Lindell.
North Carolina
Voter Registration Challenges
- In 2023, the North Carolina legislature overrode Gov. Roy Cooper’s veto to pass SB 747, a voting law with many provisions that election experts warn will make it harder to vote in the state. The law includes measures that expand who can submit voter challenges.
- Records American Oversight obtained show activists are challenging voter registrations in North Carolina.
- Totes Legit Votes contacted the North Carolina State Board of Elections and the Catawba County Board of Elections with allegations of potential double voter registrations. The tipster claimed they received the information from the activist groups Look Ahead America and Patriot Force CA.
- Ian Camacho — the research director of a group that supported Jan. 6 defendants — cited data from VoteRef when submitting an allegation of double voting to Wake County election officials and the North Carolina State Election Board.
- In 2022, an individual in North Carolina submitted several complaints to VoteRef.com, claiming that inaccurate personal data was hosted on the website.
Politically Motivated Litigation
- The RNC and the North Carolina Republican Party sued the State Board of Elections, alleging it failed to remove noncitizens from its voter rolls. The same groups also filed a separate lawsuit challenging the registration of more than 220,000 voters in the state. In October, the RNC again sued the state board, taking issue with how it administers overseas voting.
- In August, the North Carolina State Board of Elections determined that a digital ID card used by students and employees at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill could be used to comply with the state’s photo ID law. In September, the RNC sued the board over this decision and requested a temporary restraining order intended to block the use of the digital ID. A judge denied this request on Sept. 19 but the North Carolina Court of Appeals later ruled that the IDs cannot be used to vote.
Anti-Immigrant Conspiracy Theories
- SB 747 also created a new procedure for removing noncitizens from state voter rolls.
- In August, the RNC sued the North Carolina Board of Elections, claiming the board failed to remove noncitizens from voter rolls.
- This November, a citizens-only voting amendment will appear on North Carolinians’ ballots.
- In October, CBS News published a video that shows James Womack — the chair of the Lee County Republican Party and the president of the North Carolina Election Integrity Team — advising 1,800 volunteers to flag voters with “Hispanic-sounding last names” when searching for suspicious voter registrations.
Voter Intimidation
- SB 747 will permit partisan poll observers to freely move around polling locations, listen to conversations among voters and election officials, and take photographs.
- Cleta Mitchell’s Election Integrity Network reportedly pushed for the poll observer provisions in the law.
- The bill also included a measure that places new restrictions on voting by mail, requiring all ballots to be received before polling locations close on Election Day.
Ohio
Voter Registration Challenges
- In August, the Ohio secretary of state’s office purged nearly 160,000 voters from the rolls after issuing guidance to counties to collect data for inactive voter records.
- Among those affected were 500 people experiencing homelessness. American Oversight filed a public records request to further investigate.
- Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose also removed more than 25,000 voters shortly before the 2023 abortion referendum vote. American Oversight has requested records about the cancellations.
- The Ohio Election Integrity Network (OEIN) has been approaching counties with lists of voter registrations to double-check or remove. American Oversight received records that highlight OEIN’s activities.
- American Oversight also obtained a 135-page “Ohio Election Complaint” submitted by United Sovereign Americans to the secretary of state.
Politically Motivated Litigation
- United Sovereign Americans sued the state of Ohio and multiple officials, alleging that the state’s voter rolls were improperly maintained.
Anti-Immigrant Conspiracy Theories
- Amid national attention and harmful and racist rumors regarding Haitian immigrants in Ohio, LaRose issued a warning in September regarding a voter registration form that had been translated into the Haitian Creole language, further igniting xenophobic fears.
- In 2023, LaRose flagged more than 520 alleged cases of noncitizen voter fraud. Only one person was charged.
- In August, LaRose’s office announced it had purged nearly 500 alleged noncitizen voter registrations. American Oversight sent requests to the secretary of state’s office and several counties regarding these purges. In response, Hamilton County confirmed it received a list of nine non-citizen voters from the secretary’s office.
Hand Counts
- Two proposed bills — HB 472 and SB 274 — would ban voting machines in Ohio and essentially require hand-counting ballots.
- American Oversight obtained emails between Marcell Strbich of the Ohio Election Integrity Network and Cleta Mitchell about HB 472 and alleged noncitizen voter registrations.
Pennsylvania
Voter Registration Challenges
- PA Fair Elections, an “election integrity” group with ties to Cleta Mitchell, has submitted a number of voter roll challenges, often using information that came from EagleAI, IV3, and Fight Voter Fraud.
- An informal group of activists has filed thousands of challenges in Allegheny County.
- Activists in Pennsylvania’s Erie County mailed thousands of voter registration cancellation forms encouraging people to cancel their registration if they had relocated. An activist from Chester County testified that PA Fair Elections was behind the mass mailing.
- In October, election offices in Philadelphia’s suburbs received hundreds of voter registration challenges submitted by election denial activists and groups.
- American Oversight has filed public records requests regarding voter challenges in the state.
- American Oversight obtained records of voter challenges submitted in Delaware County by Dean Dreibelbis, a member of PA Fair Elections and a plaintiff in United Sovereign Americans’ lawsuit. The documents also include Delaware County election officials’ communications with Leah Hoopes, one of the state’s fake electors who had signed bogus documents claiming that Donald Trump won the 2020 election in Pennsylvania.
Politically Motivated Litigation
- In May, the Black Political Empowerment Project filed a lawsuit on behalf of 10 voting rights groups, challenging a Pennsylvania law that disqualifies mail-in ballots that have missing or incorrect dates on the outer envelope.
- The RNC and state Republican Party successfully petitioned to intervene in the case in June.
- In September, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that it did not have jurisdiction over the matter, dismissing the suit. Undated and misdated mail ballots will not be counted in this election.
- A group of 24 Republican state lawmakers filed a lawsuit early in 2024 challenging measures intended to expand voting access. The suit was dismissed in March.
- A lawsuit filed by the RNC in September accuses election officials in Montgomery County of starting their election process without sufficiently testing voting equipment.
- In July, a Pennsylvania court ruled that images of completed mail-in and absentee ballots are public records.
- United Sovereign Americans filed a lawsuit alleging the state’s voter rolls are not up to date. American Oversight has filed public records requests related to this lawsuit.
- In October, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit brought by six members of Congress from Pennsylvania. The suit sought to impose new checks on the eligibility of those voting from overseas.
- Election officials in Pennsylvania are reportedly anticipating an onslaught of litigation to come after the election.
Anti-Immigrant Election Denial
- An Allegheny County council member introduced legislation that would require the county elections office to submit voter rolls to the Department of Homeland Security to check the citizenship status of voters.
- ProPublica obtained a recording of an October training session for Pennsylvania poll watchers that shows an RNC “election-integrity specialist” instructed volunteers to not be concerned with noncitizen voting because the system had safeguards in place.
Voter Intimidation
- American Oversight obtained communications between Montgomery County commissioners and election denial activists. The records include emails from PA Fair Elections regarding access to election testing and recounts, as well as emails from a state House candidate who advocated for the removal of ballot drop boxes and said they had monitored the cars of people using drop boxes.
- In October, the Bradford County Board of Elections decided that voters cannot correct mistakes made on mail-in ballots, a process called ballot curing.
- In October, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that voters who have their mail ballots rejected for certain errors should be able to cast provisional ballots at polling precincts. State and national Republicans have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to issue an emergency order that would block this ruling.
Certification Delays
- Requests to recount vote tallies in 172 precincts delayed the certification of the 2022 general election in nine Pennsylvania counties.
- Pennsylvania does not allow election offices to pre-process mail ballots in advance of Election Day, leading some election experts to worry that slower results could prompt conspiracy theories.
- Follow the Law, a group with ties to election deniers, has run ads in Pennsylvania targeting election officials that suggest officials do not have to certify results.
Hand Counts
- Records obtained by American Oversight show that county commissioners in Butler County met with Audit the Vote, an organization that has pushed for hand recounts throughout the state.
Texas
Voter Registration Challenges
- Voter challenges have flooded election offices across the state, with Denton County alone receiving more than 17,000 challenges.
- Many challenges have come from True the Vote. The organization is using IV3 to identify supposed instances of inaccurate voter rolls.
- Multiple groups have filed voter challenges in Brazos County.
- In Tarrant County, 11 people have made more than 15,000 challenges.
- Documents obtained by American Oversight show that a “concerned citizen” alleged that 98,000 voter registrations — more than 10% of all voters — had been challenged in Travis County.
- Additional records obtained by American Oversight show that Jay Valentine, the founder of a voter data monitoring software called Omega4America, contacted Texas Sen. Bryan Hughes and Texas Secretary of State Jane Nelson in August 2021 to push his “Fractal programming technology” as a way to identify supposed voter-roll issues in Texas.
- Records obtained by American Oversight suggest that the secretary of state’s office considered using the OSET Institute’s PairWise technology to clean voter rolls and that the office’s IT department even approved the idea in August 2023. There are no records suggesting this system was adopted.
- American Oversight signed a letter urging Texas counties to encourage administrators to reject third-party registration challenges that don’t involve “personal knowledge” of the alleged violation, as required by law.
- In August, Gov. Greg Abbott announced roughly 1 million voters had been purged from the state’s rolls. Election experts noted, however, that federal and state law already required this routine maintenance and warned Abbott’s publicity of the process could further erode trust in democratic elections.
- State officials are urging counties to join a central state-run system for managing voter rolls.
- In August, Tarrant County adopted a software called Ballot Verifier that allows people to review ballots and electronic records of votes at home.
- American Oversight has obtained records showing that “election integrity” activists sought to inspect ballots in Brazos and Harris Counties.
- American Oversight joined other groups in sending a letter to the U.S. Department of Justice urging the DOJ to protect every Texans’ right to a secret ballot.
Politically Motivated Litigation
- The attorney general’s office sued Bexar County after the county finalized a contract with a company to mail voter registration forms to eligible voters in the county.
- A judge dismissed the lawsuit, and the attorney general has appealed.
- In August, United Sovereign Americans filed a lawsuit alleging the state’s voter rolls are inaccurate. The suit asks the court to block certifying the upcoming election.
- In October, the Travis County Republican Party sued a county clerk, alleging that an insufficient number of Republicans were selected by the county to be poll workers.
Anti-Immigrant Conspiracy Theories
- Abbott’s press release touting the state’s voter roll maintenance emphasized that 6,500 “noncitizens” were removed from lists, claiming that nearly 2,000 of those removed had a voting history.
- Reporting shows that only a fraction of those removed from the voter rolls were identified as non-citizens. Most of those included in Abbott’s 6,500 figure were people who did not receive or respond to letters informing them there were questions regarding their citizenship.
- American Oversight obtained records that back up this reporting, showing that 379 non-U.S. citizens were removed from Texas’s voter rolls between 2021 and 2023, and that 5,440 were removed because they did not respond to letters regarding their citizenship. Along with other watchdog and voting rights groups, American Oversight sent a letter to Texas’ secretary of state, flagging that some of these people could have been mistakenly removed.
- In August, Attorney General Paxton launched an “election integrity” investigation into organizations he claimed were “illegally registering non-citizens to vote,” based on a tweet from a Fox News host that lacked any supporting evidence. Along with the Texas Civil Rights Project, ACLU Texas, and League of Women Voters of Texas, American Oversight sent a letter to Texas officials regarding the probe, which threatens voter registration by creating unnecessary fear and confusion.
- In September, Paxton asked the Biden administration for citizenship data to check the state’s voter rolls. On Oct. 7 — the last day to register to vote in Texas — Paxton asked the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services to confirm the citizenship status of more than 450,000 people registered to vote in the state.
- In October, Paxton sued the Biden administration, claiming the federal government is not adequately helping Texas check the citizenship status of registered voters in Texas.
Voter Intimidation
- In August, the state’s election integrity unit, part of the attorney general’s office, raided the homes and offices of Latino voting advocates.
- Paxton’s office also recently launched a tip line for reporting illegal voting, furthering concerns of voter intimidation in the state.
- Voting rights groups have warned these actions are a deliberate effort to intimidate voter registration and suppress the Latino vote.
- After the U.S. Department of Justice announced it planned to monitor polling places in 27 states including Texas, top election officials in the state told DOJ that federal inspectors could not be inside polling places.
Partisan Election Administration
- In 2023, Texas passed SB 1933, a law that allows the state to take over Harris County’s elections under certain conditions. Harris County is the largest county in the state and encompasses much of the Houston metropolitan area.
- Despite an audit that showed the county improved its administration of elections, the Texas Secretary of State’s Office will send auditors to observe the county’s election in November.
- American Oversight obtained documents that show a state legislative aide and an official in the secretary of state’s office discussing the possibility of using Harris County’s response to a voter challenge to invoke SB 1933.
- In Tarrant County, the GOP tried and failed to remove some college campuses as polling places — a move that was criticized as an attempt to suppress voting by college students.
Hand Counts
- Gillespie County hand-counted ballots in its primary election. A 2023 failed attempt to adopt hand counts in Kerr County led to multiple resignations by election administrators.
- Documents obtained by American Oversight show Texas Elections Director Christina Adkins met with hand-count activists in October 2023 to advise them on how hand-counting could be done in compliance with state law.
- Records received by American Oversight show hand-count enthusiasts contacted Bexar, Fort Bend, Denton, Collin, Van Zandt, and Taylor counties in 2023.
- The records also show that individuals promoted Mark Cook’s “hand count road show” to county officials in Texas.
State Voter Fraud Investigations
- Texas’ Election Integrity Division, within the state attorney general’s office, has been around since 2005, but ballooned in size after the 2020 presidential election. Attorney General Ken Paxton announced in October 2021 the creation of a special Election Integrity Unit, which the office called a “dedicated group specially tasked with overseeing the 2021 election season.” Most recently, this unit made headlines as Paxton used it to conduct raids on Latino voting activists.
- Additional records obtained by American Oversight suggest that since 2016, only one of the unit’s at least 169 cases of alleged fraud have led to a judgment.
- In 2021, American Oversight obtained documents, reported on by the Houston Chronicle, showing that the division’s budget grew from $1.9 million in October 2020 to $2.2 million by September 2021. Despite this increase in resources and time — Paxton’s office spent almost twice as much time working on voter fraud cases in 2020 as it did in 2018 — the unit has not found widespread fraud. It closed only three cases in 2021.
Virginia
Voter Registration Challenges
- In August, Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin issued an executive order that included provisions the governor’s office claimed would improve voter roll maintenance.
- American Oversight obtained records from the Virginia Department of Elections that include; an agreement with the Virginia Department of Health regarding data about those who had died in the state; an agreement with the Virginia State Police regarding data about felony convictions; and an agreement with the Kentucky State Board of Elections regarding state voter registration data following Virginia’s withdrawal from the Electronic Registration Information Center.
- Election experts noted that the order served to rally conservative support by restating existing policies instead of creating new ones.
- In October, the U.S. Department of Justice sued Virginia election officials, alleging that Youngkin’s executive order violates a federal law that requires a 90-day “quiet period” prior to elections for maintenance of voter lists.
- As part of this lawsuit, the state disclosed that more than 1,600 people have had their voter registrations revoked since August. A judge ordered the state to restore these voter registrations.
- On Oct. 30, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Virginia can resume purging voters from its registration lists.
- American Oversight obtained records that show a Virginia resident sent notice to Loudoun County officials alleging the county’s voter rolls violated the National Voter Registration Act. The resident, who had been prosecuted for his involvement in the Jan. 6 insurrection, was seemingly acting in partnership with the Holtzman Vogel Law Firm in Washington, DC. He threatened to sue and alleged that purportedly inaccurate voter rolls meant the county potentially could not certify the election.
- Documents obtained by American Oversight show that in June 2023 a Virginia Department of Elections worker encouraged the department to hire two temporary contractors because of the significant workload the department experienced after Virginai withdrew from ERIC.
Anti-Immigrant Conspiracy Theories
- Youngkin’s August executive order also included measures requiring the state Department of Motor Vehicles to create daily lists of non-citizen transactions to share with the state Department of Elections. In October, the Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights and the League of Women Voters of Virginia filed a lawsuit challenging the policy, alleging it violates a law that prohibits removing voters from rolls within 90 days of an election.
- American Oversight obtained records from the Virginia Department of Elections related to the implementation of this executive order. The records include an agreement between the department and the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles regarding data about citizenship.
- In August, the governor’s office announced Virginia had purged 6,303 non-citizens from its voter rolls during Youngkin’s time in office, sparking renewed allegations of widespread fraud. A review by the Washington Post found no evidence that any noncitizens had attempted to vote during Youngkin’s term.
State Voter Fraud Investigations
- In 2022, Attorney General Jason Miyares created an election integrity unit, a move the NAACP called “a public relations ploy to pander to election deniers and conspiracy theorists.”
- American Oversight obtained an internal memo that described the unit as “a restructuring of existing resources within the OAG” and emphasized that attorneys, investigators, and paralegals who already work on election-related cases would be assigned to the unit but that “no additional or new funds are required.”
Certification Delays
- In October, election officials in Waynesboro County filed a lawsuit indicating they will not certify the November election results without changes to Virginia’s election policy.
Wisconsin
Voter Registration Challenges
- A June report by Protect Democracy named Wisconsin as one of 11 states likely to see widespread voter challenges this year.
- Wisconsin Republicans’ attacks on Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) Administrator Meagan Wolfe have included the unfounded allegation that Wolfe has not adequately managed the state’s voter rolls.
Politically Motivated Litigation
- In September, the RNC sued Racine County for allegedly not hiring enough Republican poll workers to staff the August primary.
- In April, PILF sued the WEC for access to National Voter Registration Act list maintenance records.
- A Wisconsin man, represented by two lawyers with close ties to election denialism, sued the WEC in an attempt to impose stricter rules for absentee voting. Voting rights advocates warn that such restrictions would make it much harder for people, especially those with disabilities, to vote. In July, a judge dismissed the lawsuit.
Anti-Immigrant Conspiracy Theories
- This November, Wisconsin ballots will include a constitutional amendment to bar noncitizens from voting.
- In August, a Wisconsin man sued the WEC and Department of Motor Vehicles, challenging the state’s process for verifying registered voters’ citizenship status. In September, Forward Latino and Voces de la Frontera filed a motion to dismiss the case.
Voter Intimidation
- A 2022 ruling by the Wisconsin Supreme Court limited the use of drop boxes so that they could only be located inside of election clerks’ offices.
- In 2024, the state Supreme Court overturned that decision, permitting drop boxes to be placed in more locations.
- In response, several places have recently voted to ban ballot drop boxes, including two Waukesha County communities and six municipalities in Milwaukee County.
- The mayor of Wausau removed a drop box outside of City Hall, which the city clerk reported to the WEC and the Marathon County district attorney. The drop box will stay put and the Wisconsin Department of Justice is now investigating.
- A Dodge County sheriff encouraged three municipal clerks to ban drop boxes; they did not.
- Election experts have raised concerns that “election integrity” activists may stake out and monitor drop boxes, intimidating voters. In September, True the Vote announced it plans to observe drop boxes with a live camera feed.
- In a special primary election this summer, police removed two poll observers from a polling location because they were being disruptive and challenging every absentee ballot.
- The Republican Parties in Milwaukee and Dane counties filed complaints with the WEC claiming officials had “refus[ed] to hire a fair number of Republican election inspectors” in the April primary.
- In September, the RNC falsely alleged that the state sent 1,000 mail-in ballots to ineligible voters.
- In October, PILF sued the Wisconsin Elections Commission for records related to the advice given to clerks for auditing same-day voter registrations.
Certification Delays
- Follow the Law, a group with ties to election deniers, has run ads in Wisconsin targeting election officials that suggest officials do not have to certify results.
Hand Counts
- After the Wisconsin towns of Thornapple and Lawrence banned electronic voting machines, the Department of Justice sued the municipalities for not having accessible voting equipment for voters with disabilities. In October, a judge ordered Thornapple to use accessible voting machines in November.
Additional Documents
American Oversight has obtained thousands of pages of public records that shed light on the tactics being deployed by the anti-democracy movement as it seeks to foment chaos and doubt about the 2024 election.
Voter Registration Challenges
- Records from the Louisiana Secretary of State in response to American Oversight’s request seeking communications regarding the state’s withdrawal from the Electronic Registration Information Center.
- Records from the Louisiana Secretary of State in response to American Oversight’s request seeking records regarding possible alternative voter data sharing systems intended to replace the Electronic Registration Information Center.
- Records from the Georgia Secretary of State in response to American Oversight’s request seeking communications regarding Electronic Registration Information Center membership costs.
- Records from the Georgia State Election Board received in response to American Oversight’s request seeking Georgia State Election Board communications regarding EagleAI.
- Records from the Idaho Secretary of State in response to American Oversight’s request seeking communications regarding Opearent, a possible alternative to the Electronic Registration Information Center.
- Records from the Idaho Secretary of State in response to American Oversight’s request seeking communications and calendar meetings regarding Opearent.
- Records from the Ohio Secretary of State in response to American Oversight’s request for communications with the U.S. Congress and the Ohio General Assembly regarding the preservation of election-related data.
- Records received in response to American Oversight’s request seeking reports or audit materials from United Sovereign Americans. The documents include a 135-page “Ohio Election Complaint” submitted by United Sovereign Americans to the secretary of state.
- Records from the Florida Department of State’s Office in response to American Oversight’s request for communications between top officials and anti-democracy activists.
- Records from the Loudoun County, Va., Administrator’s Office in response to American Oversight’s request seeking records concerning election denial.
- Records from Mohave County, Ariz., in response to American Oversight’s request seeking Jury Commissioner communications.
- Records from the West Virginia Secretary of State in response to American Oversight’s request seeking records regarding voter challenges from EagleAI.
- Records from the Missouri Secretary of State’s Office in response to American Oversight’s request seeking communications with anti-ERIC activists.
- Records received in response to American Oversight’s request for communications with anti-ERIC groups and communications related to EagleAI. These records contain voter registration challenges issued in Missouri and North Carolina.
- Records from the Texas Secretary of State in response to American Oversight’s request for seeking communications with activist groups seeking to replace the Electronic Registration Information Center.
- Records from the Texas Secretary of State in response to American Oversight’s request for communications, directives, and assessments related to the state’s membership in ERIC.
- Records from the Texas Secretary of State received in response to American Oversight’s request for communications between the office and anti-ERIC activists as well as guidance and directives regarding ERIC. The records include information regarding non-U.S. citizens removed from voter rolls.
- Records from the Texas Secretary of State received in response to American Oversight’s request seeking documents related to Texas’ withdrawal from ERIC. The records include an email that shows a “concerned citizen” alleged that 98,000 voter registrations — more than 10% of all voters — had been challenged in Travis County.
- Records from the Texas Secretary of State in response to American Oversight’s request seeking communications related to alternatives to the Electronic Registration Information Center.
- Records from the Texas Secretary of State in response to American Oversight’s request seeking communications related to alternatives to the Electronic Registration Information Center.
- Records from the Wyoming Secretary of State’s Office in response to American Oversight’s request for communications with anti-voter activists and meeting records.
- Records from the Alabama Secretary of State in response to American Oversight’s requests for communications regarding the withdrawal of Alabama from the Electronic Registration Information Center.
- Records in response to American Oversight’s request seeking communications with voter challenge groups from Wayne County, Mich. The records contain a voter challenge filed by an individual who appears to be associated with Election Integrity Force.
- Records from North Carolina’s Catawba County Board of Elections received in response to American Oversight’s request seeking communications with election denier activists. The records include a voter challenge submitted by an “anonymous tipster” calling themselves Totes Legit Votes.
- Records from Mineral County, Nev., received in response to American Oversight’s request seeking voter registration challenges submitted within the county.
- Records from Delaware County, Pa., received in response to American Oversight’s request seeking communications from election officials in response to mass voter challenges from voter fraud activists.
- Records from the Virginia Secretary of State received in response to American Oversight’s request seeking communications from the Virginia Department of Elections regarding replacements for the Electronic Registration Information Center.
- Records from North Carolina State Board of Elections received in response to American Oversight’s request for communications between the board and anti-ERIC groups. The records include voter challenges submitted using data from VoteRef, Look Ahead America and Patriot Force CA.
- Records from Wake County, N.C., received in response to American Oversight’s request for communications between Wake County election officials and anti-ERIC groups. The records include voter challenges that cite data from VoteRef.
- Records from Arizona State Senators John Kavanagh and Wendy Rogers in response to American Oversight’s request seeking communications from Arizona state senators related to ERIC replacements. The records show state Kavanagh and Rogers asked Gina Swoboda, the head of Arizona’s Republican Party, about Omega4America.
- Records from Sarasota County, Fla., received in response to American Oversight’s request seeking communications between county officials and voter registration challengers as well as records of voter challenges received by the county. The documents show Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd forwarded to his staff challenges submitted by Totes Legit Votes.
- Records from the Virginia Department of Elections received in response to American Oversight’s request for communications related to the implementation of executive orders 31 and 35. The records include an agreement with the Virginia Department of Health regarding data about those who had died in the state; an agreement with the Virginia State Police regarding felony convictions; and an agreement with the Kentucky State Board of Elections regarding state voter registration data following Virginia’s withdrawal from the Electronic Registration Information Center.
Politically Motivated Litigation
- Records from the Maryland State Board of Elections in response to American Oversight’s request seeking communications regarding the audit group United Sovereign Americans.
- Records from the Maryland State Board of Elections received in response to American Oversight’s requests for communications between board members and election denial activists. The documents include communications with United Sovereign Americans in which board members Diane Butler and Jim Shalleck shared notes and sought advice and suggestions.
Anti-Immigrant Conspiracy Theories
- Records from Wisconsin Sen. Julian Bradley in response to American Oversight’s request seeking records concerning records related to election amendments.
- Records released from American Oversight’s request for Complaints to the Washington Secretary of State from far-right groups.
- Records in response to American Oversight’s request for communications from Allegheny County, Pa., regarding election denier activism.
- Records received in response to American Oversight’s request seeking communications and guidance from Hamilton County, Ohio elections officials regarding voter registration purges directed by the secretary of state. Hamilton County confirmed it received a list of nine non-citizen voters from the secretary’s office.
- Records from the Virginia Department of Elections received in response to American Oversight’s request for communications related to the implementation of executive orders 31 and 35. The records include an agreement between the department and the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles regarding data about citizenship.
Voter Intimidation
- Records from Luzerne County, Pa., in response to American Oversight’s request seeking records and communications regarding voter challenges and voter challenge groups.
- Records from Montgomery County, Pa., received in response to American Oversight’s request for communications between county commissioners and election denial activists. The records include emails from PA Fair Elections regarding access to election testing and recounts, as well as emails from a state House candidate who advocated for the removal of ballot drop boxes and said they’d monitored the cars of people using drop boxes.
Partisan Election Administration
- Records from the Georgia Office of the Attorney General in response to American Oversight’s request seeking communications and dissent related to the state elections board.
- Records from the Georgia State Election Board received in response to American Oversight’s request seeking communications among board members from July 17 to July 18, 2024. The documents include communications regarding an illegal meeting held by three far-right board members on July 12, 2024.
- Records from the Georgia State Election Board received in response to American Oversight’s request seeking board communications related to the board’s investigation of Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger as well as recent board appointees. The documents include records that show Janice Johnston expressed interest in voter registration challenges as well as monitoring county election boards’ communications.
- “No records” response from the Georgia Office of Secretary of State in response to American Oversight’s request seeking communications among State Elections Board employees and election denial activists.
- “No records” response in reply to American Oversight’s request for a summary of the subjects acted on and members present at the Georgia State Election Board meeting held on July 12, 2024.
- Records received in response to American Oversight’s request seeking communications related to the administration of Harris County elections. The records include an email showing a state legislative aide and an official in the secretary of state’s office discussing the possibility of using Harris County’s response to a voter challenge to invoke SB 1933.
Certification Delays
- Records from the Delta County Board of Commissioners in Michigan in response to American Oversight’s request seeking communications regarding election certification.
Hand Counts
- Records received in response to American Oversight’s request for communications between Elko County commissioners and election integrity activists. The records show a behind-the-scenes look at the county’s test hand count.
- Records from the Texas Secretary of State received in response to American Oversight’s requests seeking documents related to election administration. The records include communications regarding hand counts.
- Records from the Texas Secretary of State received in response to American Oversight’s request seeking communications between Texas secretary of state officials and individuals and organizations promoting hand counts.
- Records from Ohio Reps. Bernard Willis and Bob Peterson received in response to American Oversight’s requests for communications about HB 472. The records include emails between Marcell Strbich of the Ohio Election Integrity Network and Cleta Mitchell about HB 472 and alleged noncitizen voter registrations.
- Records from Navajo County, Ariz., showing communications with election deniers, including about hand counts.
State Voter Fraud Investigations
- Records from the Florida Department of State received in response to American Oversight’s request seeking records sufficient to identify all cases investigated by the Office of Election Crimes and Security as well as the final disposition of each case. The documents include spreadsheets clarifying how many hours staff within the office worked in 2023 and 2024.
- Records received from the Texas Attorney General in response to American Oversight’s request seeking records sufficient to identify all closed cases investigated by the Office of the Attorney General’s Election Fraud Unit as well as staffing information for OAG employees working on matters concerning election integrity. The records suggest that since 2016, only one of the unit’s at least 169 cases of alleged fraud have led to a judgment.