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In the final week before the election, anti-democratic activists and officials have continued their efforts to suppress the vote through registration challenges, attempted last-minute rule changes, and other tactics meant to sow distrust and confusion among voters.
American Oversight is tracking these efforts in The 2024 Anti-Democracy Playbook, which is continually updated to reflect the ways activists and political leaders are trying to set the stage for post-election chaos and potential challenges.
- Election denial activists in Pennsylvania submitted hundreds of voter registration challenges this week, alleging just days before the election that certain voters had moved. Voting rights activists have called the challenges baseless.
- In recent months, activists in Pennsylvania’s Erie County have mailed thousands of voter registration cancellation forms encouraging people to cancel their registration if they had relocated.
- The Pennsylvania Republican Party has argued for rejecting mail-in ballots that were received on time but arrived in undated envelopes. A Pennsylvania court ruled again this week that mail-in ballots with missing or incorrect dates must be counted.
- Earlier this month, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that voters who have their mail ballots rejected for certain errors — such as being returned without a security envelope — should be able to cast provisional ballots at polling precincts. This week, state and national Republicans asked the U.S. Supreme Court to issue an emergency order that would block this ruling.
The U.S. Supreme Court ruled this week that Virginia can resume purging voters from its registration lists. The state had removed 1,600 names in recent months based on the false and harmful notion that non-citizens are voting in U.S. elections.
- The Court granted an emergency appeal from Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s administration, with the three liberal justices dissenting.
- Among those whose registrations were canceled were lifelong and naturalized Virginian citizens who will have to re-register to cast their vote this year.
Other tactics being deployed by anti-democratic activists and leaders include pushing for certification delays and hand counts, intimidating election officials and poll workers, and filing baseless lawsuits meant to sow distrust.
- Follow the Law, a group with ties to election deniers, ran ads in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Georgia earlier this month targeting election officials that suggest officials do not have to certify results.
- Two local election officials in Michigan were removed from overseeing the election this week after they informed state officials that they planned to hand count ballots in November — an antidemocratic tactic based on the conspiracy theory that electronic voting machines produce inaccurate vote tallies because of errors or tampering.
- In Travis County, Texas, the County Republican Party this week sued a county clerk, alleging that an insufficient number of Republicans were selected by the county to be poll workers.
- This week, one of the founders of the Trump-aligned group United Sovereign Americans told USA Today that the group is already planning to sue over this year’s election results.
American Oversight Sues Georgia State Election Board for Obstruction of Public Records Access
This week, we filed a lawsuit alleging that the Georgia State Election Board (SEB) and one of its members, Janice Johnston, have obstructed access to public records by refusing to adequately search for or produce requested documents from private email accounts.
- The suit, filed Wednesday in the Fulton County Superior Court, aims to ensure accountability for Georgia’s election board and underscores the critical need for transparency ahead of next week’s election.
- It asks the court to order SEB to release key documents and communications related to election administration and to impose penalties for violations of the Open Records Act (ORA).
- We also sent a formal letter to the Georgia inspector general and the attorney general urging an investigation into the SEB’s violations of both the ORA and the state’s Open Meetings Act.
American Oversight also sent records preservation notices to state and local election officials in Georgia, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin reminding them of their legal obligation to retain all election-related documents, including communications on personal devices or accounts.
- The retention notices come after our lawsuit in Cochise County, Ariz., against officials who refused to certify the 2022 midterm election results by the legal deadline and failed to properly respond to related public records requests. The lawsuit exposed the officials’ use of personal devices for official business and forced the county to turn over thousands of pages of records that had been deleted.
- The preservation notices “underscore that any attempts to circumvent transparency laws or destroy evidence of election disruption will not go unchecked,” interim Executive Director Chioma Chukwu said.
On the Records
Voter Challenges in Delaware County, Pa.
We’ve been investigating voter intimidation in key states, including Pennsylvania, and recently obtained records that shed light on election deniers’ activities in Delaware County.
- The records include voter registration challenges submitted by Dean Dreibelbis, a member of PA Fair Elections, an “election integrity” group with ties to Cleta Mitchell. Dreibelbis is also a plaintiff in a lawsuit alleging the state’s voter rolls are not up to date, filed by the right-wing group United Sovereign Americans.
- Additionally, the records include Delaware County election officials’ communications with Leah Hoopes, one of Pennsylvania’s fake electors who signed bogus documents claiming that Donald Trump won the 2020 election in the state.
Virginia’s Withdrawal from ERIC
In 2023, Virginia withdrew from the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), the nonpartisan organization used by states to ensure accurate voter lists. Records we obtained show the challenges the Virginia Department of Elections faced as it attempted to replicate ERIC’s work.
- According to a June 2023 email sent by a data decision support team supervisor in the department, an “IT analysis of leaving ERIC” determined that the data team would need to add two temporary contractors “since the workload is so high.”
- The records also include a job description for a database developer tied to a “ERIC replacement project.”
Partisan Election Administration in Texas
Records we obtained shed light on recent conservative efforts to take over elections in Harris County, Texas, the state’s most populous county and home to the more liberal-leaning city of Houston.
- The documents show that last November, Bill Ely, a Harris County GOP official emailed a complaint challenging a voter registration to the Texas Secretary of State’s office. In January, he forwarded the complaint to state Rep. Tom Oliverson, who asked his legislative director to “reach out to the SoS and ascertain the status on this,” adding that it was “very high priority.”
- In an emailed response to the staffer, Texas Elections Director Christina Adkins wrote that the office had handled Ely's complaint but that “he wasn't very satisfied with our response.”
- In March, the staffer asked Adkins if the Harris County Registrar’s refusal to remove the challenged registration could be considered “a reocurring pattern of a failure to conduct maintenance activities on the lists of registered voters” as outlined in a now recently passed bill that would allow the secretary of state to take over election administration in the county.
- Adkins responded and asked to speak that day; emails show the two coordinated a time for a phone call.
There have been more challenges to voter registrations in Harris County in recent months, and conservative scrutiny over the county’s election processes has also ramped up.
- In August, Texas Republicans complained about and delayed the county’s voter outreach plans, which included mailing unsolicited registration packets to eligible but unregistered voters.
- This month, election denier and GOP megadonor Steven Hotze sued the county registrar to remove “tens of thousands” of voters from the county’s voter lists.
Inside Election Integrity Network Meetings
This week, the New York Times reported on recordings of more than 400 meetings of Cleta Mitchell’s Election Integrity Network (EIN), a group at the forefront of the election denial movement.
We’ve also obtained recordings of EIN meetings that reveal members commenting on the deficiencies of EagleAI — a fringe technology pushed by conservatives as a way to “clean” voter rolls — and their own efforts to find evidence of nonexistent widespread voter fraud.
- In a meeting of EIN’s voter rolls working group on March 20, EagleAI founder Dr. John “Rick” Richards said that the EagleAI algorithms only “pick up 90% of [voter] moves,” with people having to manually review the rest of the data.
- During a May 1 voter rolls working group meeting, EIN members discussed the lack of success they’d had in their baseless quest to find mass voter fraud. Doug Ardt of Arizona acknowledged that canvassing revealed no evidence of widespread voter roll inaccuracies: “We only knock on doors if we just can’t determine from investigating the voter registration as to whether or not it’s valid. And that’s very rarely. Occasionally, we do, and usually, it turns out that well, it looks a little iffy, but the registration is just fine.”
- We also obtained emails between Marcell Strbich of the Ohio Election Integrity Network and Cleta Mitchell about a bill that would ban voting machines as well as alleged noncitizen voter registrations.
Other Stories We're Following
Election Denial and Threats to Democracy
- Monitors, once meant to prevent election fraud, now seek to prove it (New York Times)
- An elections worker wanted to serve her country. A stew of conspiracy theories and vitriol awaited (Associated Press)
- ‘Expect war’: leaked chats reveal influence of rightwing media on militia group (Guardian)
- ‘Take back the states’: The far-right sheriffs ready to disrupt the election (Wired)
- Staff at US voting machine firms prep for doxxing, misinformation and 'swatting' (Reuters)
- GOP leaders in some states move to block Justice Dept. election monitors (Washington Post)
- These Pennsylvania election officials are pro-Trump conspiracists (Rolling Stone)
- Florida teen arrested after brandishing machete outside early voting location, police say (CNN)
- In the podcast election, top shows cast doubt on integrity of 2024 vote (Washington Post)
Voting Rights
- Federal Fourth Circuit panel hears appeal in NC voter purge case (NC Newsline)
- Michigan voters with disabilities face barriers to the ballot box, despite legal protections (Votebeat)
- Yost unlawfully blocked proposed voting rights amendment, Ohio Supreme Court rules (Cleveland.com)
- As Texas refuses online voter registration, paper applications get lost (Texas Tribune)
- She supports Trump’s anti-immigration policies. Texas incorrectly flagged her as a “noncitizen” on its voting rolls. (ProPublica)
- Local senator’s bill would require proof of citizenship for voter registration (Dayton Daily News)
- Iowa secretary of state blames feds for timing of citizenship audit (Iowa Capital Dispatch)
- Indiana elections chief pushes back against criticism over voter roll citizenship review (Indiana Capital Chronicle)
- Milwaukee judge dismisses lawsuit challenging more than 140K voter registrations (Wisconsin Public Radio)
In the States
- Passwords for voting equipment posted on Secretary of State’s website, but officials say there’s no immediate security risk (Colorado Public Radio)
- 'Cascading effects' of Waynesboro lawsuit in Virginia could affect federal elections (Staunton News Leader)
- Democratic senatorial candidate left off ballot in Mingo County during portion of early voting (West Virginia Watch)
- Second Texas doctor sued for providing gender-affirming care to minors (Texas Tribune)
- Oral arguments set Dec. 4 before U.S. Supreme Court in Tennessee gender affirming care ban (Tennessee Lookout)
Abortion and Reproductive Rights
- A woman died after being told it would be a ‘crime’ to intervene in her miscarriage at a Texas hospital (ProPublica)
- Opponents use parental rights and anti-trans messages to fight abortion ballot measures (Associated Press)
- How a rightwing machine stopped Arkansas’s ballot initiative to roll back one of the strictest abortion bans (Guardian)
- Ohio passed a measure protecting abortion rights. Then the money ran out. (Mother Jones)
Threats to Education
- Investigation finds consistent communication issues at Walters’ Education Department (Oklahoma Voice)
- Reading, writing and religion? A Texas curriculum advisory board’s link to faith-based advocacy (Texas Tribune)
- Book bans live on in school district now run by Democrats (New York Times)
Government Transparency and Public Records Law
- Utah has a huge backlog of public records disputes, but a committee can’t meet to address them. Here’s why. (Salt Lake Tribune)
- Lawsuit asks court to stop Montana Legislative Services from keeping bill draft documents secret (Daily Montanan)
Trump Accountability
- Inside the movement behind Trump’s election lies (New York Times)
- ‘Put them in trauma’: inside a key MAGA leader’s plans for a new Trump agenda (ProPublica)
- Advisers propose that Trump give security clearances without FBI vetting (New York Times)
- Trump identifies a scapegoat in case he loses (Axios)
- New York court suspends lawyer who pushed Trump’s fake electors scheme (New York Times)
- Sheriffs push Trump's 'migrant crime' message with scant evidence (Reuters)
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