For two weeks, Couy Griffin sat in solitary confinement. He wasn’t allowed to make phone calls. He had no access to a shower, so he made do with the small sink in his cell.
Griffin, who once worked as a rodeo rider for Disneyland Paris and later traveled across the US as a preacher, had been arrested for entering restricted U.S. Capitol grounds during the attack on the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.
He spent his days behind bars banging his head on the door and yelling at guards.
Once released from jail and awaiting trial, Griffin returned to New Mexico, where he had been an elected county commissioner since 2019. In short order, he got divorced, lost custody of his child, and his colleagues on the commission called for his resignation.
He allegedly made racist statements (like saying Black football players should “go back to Africa”), and called for violence by saying “the only good Democrat is a dead Democrat” at a rally. His colleagues also said he refused to follow state campaign finance laws.
Members of the community started an effort to recall Griffin, saying he had used the office for personal gain. Griffin called the effort “frivolous, baseless, and politically motivated.''
Then in March 2022, Griffin was convicted for his role on Jan. 6. He still didn’t resign, and the citizen recall effort didn’t get enough signatures by the deadline. Griffin was active in his role as commissioner when the county’s primary elections happened in June 2022.
After the polls closed, Griffin refused to approve the results of the primary election for Otero County, a small county in New Mexico. It wasn't because he had evidence of fraud, he said, but rather, it was “based on my gut feeling and my own intuition, and that’s all I need.” Two colleagues also refused to certify, saying they didn’t trust the voting machines.
The New Mexico Secretary of State asked the state’s Supreme Court to get involved. The court ordered the commissioners to certify, because the commissioners had not identified any issue or deficiency in the election results.
The same morning the court released their decision, Griffin was sentenced for his role in Jan. 6: fourteen days in jail, a $3,000 fine, 60 hours of community service, and a year of supervised release.
That September 2022, Griffin was removed from office and barred from ever holding office again by the New Mexico Supreme Court (a decision later upheld by the US Supreme Court).
In a new article, Rolling Stone identified a total of 70 election officials like Griffin working in swing states who believe the 2020 election was stolen. In recent years, at least 25 of those officials have refused to or delayed certifying results.
Election officials are mandated by law to update their voter rolls and remove ineligible voters as a routine part of their jobs. Butnow, there are new apps that allow lay people to challenge voter registrations and sow mistrust and doubt about the election process.
Until recently, most states use a site called the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) to keep accurate voter rolls using encrypted sensitive data from sources like the DMV and the Postal Service. At its peak, 33 states and Washington, DC, were using it. But in 2022, election deniers started a disinformation campaign saying the site was connected to George Soros, a liberal billionaire who donates to Democratic causes and politicians. Nine states stopped using ERIC.
Enter the EagleAI Network. Developed by John Richards Jr. from Georgia, the system was built for people who don’t trust election results.
EagleAI allows anyone to look up someone else’s voter registration using a collection of data from public records and purchased information, such as previous voter rolls, property tax and land use documents, change of address records from the post office, obituary data, and criminal records.
Users of EagleAI gather “evidence” and send a challenge, saying that person is dead, doesn’t live at their address anymore, etc.
The challenge essentially says “this person should not be allowed to vote.”
There is a law in Georgia that says that all voter registration challenges must be filed by a person living in the same county as the voter they are challenging. EagleAI works around that. Anyone across the country can use EagleAI and file a complaint. To comply with Georgia law, a local volunteer then downloads the challenge and emails it to their county election board.
In Georgia, there is no limit to how many challenges to voter registrations you can submit.
EagleAI has already been used to challenge registered voters. In Bibb County, the board of elections accepted 45 challenges and tossed 198 others.
Those 45 voters now need to prove their address, or they will be removed from the voter rolls and will then need to register.
EagleAI is not the only app out there. People are also using IV3 (Independent Voter Validation and Verification), which was started by a Texas-based group called True the Vote (an organization that has been widely discredited and is known for peddling conspiracy theories. They are also accused of various financial wrongdoings).
On July 21 of this year, True the Vote reported that 6,937 citizens have completed 645,610 challenges across 1,322 counties.
On IV3, users submit a photo of their own driver’s license, and then they can search a database of voters to glean information that will allow them to file a challenge against that voter’s registration.
But there’s more. Georgia also developed a website where anyone can cancel a voter registration with just a few pieces of information.
In order to access the site, voters must put in their first initial and last name, the county in which they’re registered, and their date of birth.
When the website was rolled out last week, one major glitch showed just how easy it would be for people to cancel someone’s accurate registration. The website briefly allowed access to voters’ date of birth, driver’s license number, and the last four digits of their Social Security number. The same information that’s needed to verify someone’s identity and cancel a registration.
What the apps cannot do is accurately match distinguish between people with the same names.
David Becker, executive director of the Center for Election Innovation & Research said that it’s, “one of the hardest things in government to take information on a John Lee or a Maria Rodriguez or a Sean O’Hara on one list and compare it to someone else who has the same name or close to the same name on another list and say, ‘Oh yeah, we’re sure this is the same person.’”
This means that someone using these apps very well might be able to cancel the voter registration of a legitimate voter.
Meanwhile, it is not uncommon for someone to move and take a few months to change their voter registration. This is not a crime or fraudulent behavior, it’s a normal part of the relocation process.
Michael Morse, a law professor from the University of Pennsylvania, told USA Today, “We have a mobile electorate. People move around a lot in our country. Yet we have local election administration. We don’t have a single national voter registration list. We have 50 different state lists. So almost inevitably, our lists will become inaccurate over time, and that’s not necessarily a problem. It does not mean that there is fraud.”
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Local election offices already have limited resources and a tight budget. These challenges also take time to work through, and election boards will have to put money and time towards investigating them. There’s also the very real possibility that if a voter receives notice that their registration has been challenged, they might be scared out of voting in the next election.
Ultimately what all this means is voters need to be proactive in protecting their vote, as these apps and challenges gain speed. In short: Know your rights.
(UPDATE: Since publication, I created a website where you can register to vote, learn about early voting, find your polling location, and more. And the best part is you can sign up for reminders so all of the info you need goes straight to your inbox. Check it out today for all your voting needs.)
First things first, check your voter registration or register here. Do not click on random links on social media, no matter how convincing they might look. Some of them, like one backed by Elon Musk, have ulterior motives. We are linking you to a .gov site, not a site run by a third party.
There are federal laws protecting voters with disabilities, including that polling places must have wheelchair accessible booths, there must be equipment for voters who are vision impaired, and more. Many states also let disabled voters send a mail-in ballot.
Use your address to find a voter guide for information on your state’s candidates and issues. You can also download a sample ballot. You can bring these, and your notes, into the voting booth (paper is preferred, sometimes cell phones aren’t allowed).
On election day, if the polls close while you are in line — stay in line, you still have the right to vote. If you make a mistake, you are allowed to ask for a new ballot, and if the machines are not working, election workers must give you a paper ballot. Also, if you get to your polling location and your name is not showing up, you can ask for a provisional ballot.
Though our election system needs reform, we also need to work within the confines of the system we currently have. That’s why we all need to keep ourselves informed of our state’s voting laws as we countdown towards the election.
And above all: REMAIN UNDETERRED. Share this article with a friend so they can protect their vote too.
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