These Right-Wing Groups Are Trying to Remove Millions of Voters Around the Country

In June, a nascent right-wing group in Nevada sent more than a thousand names to 10 county clerks and registrars in an attempt to get them purged from the state’s voter registration. There’s similar efforts underway in Michigan, Wisconsin, Florida, Texas, North Carolina, Georgia and dozens of other states.  

Since the 2020 election, when former President Donald Trump and his network of conservative sycophants pushed dangerous and false allegations of voter fraud and other election conspiracy theories, his most loyal supporters are now trying to challenge millions of registered voters before the November election. The effort has evolved into a cottage industry of self-styled election integrity groups recruiting small armies of volunteers to try and identify registered voters that they believe should be removed  from state and local voter rolls. 

It’s hard to fully grasp the scale of this effort. The ecosystem is composed of smaller hyperlocal grassroots groups like the Pigpen Project in Nevada and North of 29 in Wisconsin along with bigger groups — like the Cleta Mitchell-backed Election Integrity Network (EIN), True the Vote and United Sovereign Americans — that are coordinating multi state efforts to challenge voters. At the heart of the issue is how these groups are obtaining voter registration data to initiate these mass challenges. True the Vote and EIN have even developed their own software — IV3 and EagleAI, respectively — that use incomplete or flawed voter registration data, resulting in dozens of mass voter challenges of lawfully registered voters’ registration status. 

But the recent rise of mass voter challenges is creating a massive strain for county clerks, registrars, secretaries of state and other election officials who are tasked with maintaining clean voter rolls. “There is legal procedure in place to challenge the residency and eligibility of a voter. These third-party efforts to remove voters do not follow those procedures, and it’s important for voters to know that we follow the law,” Bethany Drysdale, a spokesperson for Washoe County, Nevada office of the county manager, recently told Democracy Docket in an emailed statement. “It is a voter’s responsibility to update their registration by notifying our office, and without their consent there are extensive steps defined by statute that must be taken before we can make any changes that would affect their ability to vote.”

Despite the barrage of right-wing misinformation, disinformation and legal challenges in the past four years that, cumulatively, push a false narrative that most states’ voter rolls are inaccurate, the truth is the opposite: states generally maintain very accurate voter rolls and the regular processes in place to shed inactive or ineligible voters are working just as they should. 

“Election officials already have processes in place to make sure their voter roll lists are accurate,” Lizzie Ulmer, Senior Vice President of Strategy and Communications at the States United Democracy Center, said to Democracy Docket in an email.

“These anti-democracy groups are abusing the system and wasting time and resources of local officials — all based on unreliable data and election lies. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen bad actors try to undermine our elections. These mass challenges are part of the anti-democracy playbook.”

Democracy Docket identified eight groups leading the right-wing effort to challenge the registrations of millions of voters across the country. It’s important to note that the activities of these groups don’t account for the entirety of the mass voter challenge effort — each state has their own statutes that outline who, exactly, can challenge voter registrations. And some states, like Georgia, have made it easier for regular citizens to challenge voter registrations on a mass scale. 

Election Integrity Network (EIN)

Founded in 2021 by former Trump lawyer Cleta Mitchell, EIN is one of the largest groups leading the voter challenge  efforts. EIN initially started as a large-scale, well-funded effort to recruit thousands of election workers and poll watchers in the 2022 midterm election. It’s since expanded these efforts to foster a coalition of different state groups to engage in advocating various anti-democracy measures at the local level.

Last year, EIN-affiliated activists launched EagleAI — an incomplete and flawed database of voter roll records — and local EIN groups have been using the software to bring about voter registration challenges in various swing states. 

States active: Arizona, Florida Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Texas

True the Vote

Though the Texas-based True the Vote’s anti-voting efforts date way back to 2011, the group is behind the IV3 software that features inaccurate voter registration data being used to challenge voter rolls across the country. Ahead of the 2021 U.S. Senate runoffs in Georgia, the group was behind a mass effort to cancel 360,000 voter registrations. Recently, True the Vote is flooding Texas election officials with voter registration challenges. True the Vote, through its IV3 software, is assisting with voter challenge efforts in at least California, New York and Washington, according to Documented. 

States active: California, Georgia, New York, Texas, Washington

The People’s Audit

The People’s Audit was originally founded in 2020 in Florida to analyze the state’s voter rolls, according to Documented, but it’s since expanded its efforts. The group says they’re engaged in efforts in Georgia, North Carolina, and Texas to analyze and challenge voter roll registrations.  In May, failed Nevada Republican U.S. Senate candidate Jeff Gunter announced a partnership with The People’s Audit to “[clean] up the voter rolls” in the state. 

States active: Florida, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Texas

United Sovereign Americans (USA)

USA was formed in 2024 by Marly Hornik, a right-wing activist that also started the NY Citizens Audit in 2022, a self-described “non-partisan group of citizens dedicated to restoring and maintaining the essential, founding American principle of sovereignty through honest, provable elections in New York and across the nation.”

USA has been both recruiting and training volunteers across the country to look up and challenge voter roll registrations in their community, but their main effort has been filing a pair of lawsuits targeting voter roll maintenance and accuracy in Maryland and Pennsylvania.

States active: Maryland, Pennsylvania

Pigpen Project 

Formed in 2023 by conservative activist Chuck Muth to “clean up” Nevada’s voter registration rolls, the Pigpen Project has been recruiting volunteers to identify and submit names to county election officials to be removed from voter rolls. According to the New York Times, the group is working with EIN, True the Vote and Vote Ref — another unreliable database of semi-public voter information — to identify voters. By Muth’s own admission, the group is also engaging in “boots on the ground” to canvass door-to-door in the Silver State to confirm voter registrations.

States active: Nevada

North of 29

Another group recruiting volunteers for a door-to-door canvassing effort is the Wisconsin-based North of 29. The group, formed in 2020 by Stephanie Forrer-Harbridge according to The Guardian, is canvassing at least 72 counties in Wisconsin, with the help of noted election denier Mike Lindell.

States active: Wisconsin

Soles to the Roll

Soles to the Roll is the name of the effort by Michigan Fair Elections, the state’s EIN affiliate, to challenge voter registrations throughout the state. The group is recruiting and training volunteers to use another notoriously unreliable database — Check My Vote — to identify potential voters to report to election officials. 

States active: Michigan

Iowa Canvassing

In 2022 and 2023, Iowa Canvassing challenged nearly one thousand voter registrations in Linn and Black Hawk counties, resulting in more than 500 registration cancellations. The group formed sometime after the 2020 election, according to local reporting, as a “grassroots group of volunteers keeping Iowa voter rolls clean for fair and trusted elections” and uses a mix of data research, door-to-door canvassing, and volunteering at the polls to identify voter registrations to challenge.

States active: Iowa