A Georgia State Election Board member says the state should provide the sensitive, personal information of most Georgians to the makers of a controversial software for challenging voter eligibility.
EagleAI (pronounced “Eagle Eye”) has helped individuals file thousands of voter challenges in Georgia. Though most have been dismissed, EagleAI has become a popular tool for conservative activists who have questioned the integrity of Georgia’s voter lists since 2020, citing unproven allegations of widespread fraud and errors.
At their November meeting, the board gave EagleAI founder Rick Richards more than an hour to promote his software and criticize Georgia’s ability to maintain its voter rolls.
“This is a big, big problem,” Richards told the board. “There’s a technical term for this. In the data industry, we call it garbage. This is garbage. I’m ashamed of our (state’s) data.”
Richards, a retired physician from the Augusta area, told the board his software should be deployed by election officials, but so far, has mostly been used by individuals to challenge voters in their county.
The software identifies potentially ineligible voters by drawing data from a variety of sources not typically used by election officials, like tax assessor data, zoning codes and Google Street View. Individuals use this information to generate lists of voter registrations to formally challenge.
“The person who does voter list maintenance at the county has to verify all of this,” Richards said. “None of this is a decision. It just makes them more efficient at what they are already doing.”
But critics, like Democratic Board Member Sara Tindall Ghazal, say EagleAI incorrectly flags voters who are actually qualified to vote. For example, EagleAI would consider students registered at their college dorm ineligible, which conflicts with Georgia law.
“You are making the counties do this work, and you’re flagging eligible voters,” Tindall Ghazal said.
“I don’t think so,” Richards replied.
And unlike the multi-state collaborative used by Georgia to keep voter registration lists accurate, known as ERIC, EagleAI does not have to access sensitive, personal information like social security numbers, dates of birth and driver’s license numbers that help verify registrations.
Tindall Ghazal says EagleAI often generates false positives. The program may flag people who appear to have voted in two states, but after further investigation using social security or dates of birth, turn out to be different people.
“So can you understand why there are many people who are very concerned about making these allegations when you don’t have access to the same level of data that the state does when they’re conducting their list maintenance?” Tindall Ghazal asked.
So Republican Board Member Janelle King suggested EagleAI receive the same data as ERIC in order to evaluate the two programs side by side.
“To tell him that his information should not be utilized simply because he doesn’t have information that’s being held hostage by our Secretary of State’s office, that’s not an adequate argument in my opinion,” King said.
But personal identifiable information, or PII, like social security numbers, is protected by law and cannot be provided to just anyone.
ERIC has permission to receive motor vehicle division and voter registration data from the states and has a special certification to access data from the Social Security Administration.
ERIC has become a target of the far-right
ERIC, formally known as the Electronic Registration Information Center, is a non-profit collaboration founded by a handful of states in 2012 for sharing information to keep voter lists updated and accurate.
The collaborative currently includes 24 states and the District of Columbia. But membership has decreased since the partnership has become a target of activists on the far right. Since 2022, eight Republican-led states have pulled out of ERIC.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger has defended the importance of ERIC even as some Georgia Republicans have criticized the partnership.
“Georgia’s voter lists are the cleanest in the nation because of our membership with ERIC,” Raffensperger said last year. “Clean lists lessen the burden on our counties, provide appropriate resources in each precinct, and ensure the voter has a smooth experience at the polls.”
King’s suggestion to turn over personal data to EagleAI also runs counter to a top reason states have cited for leaving for ERIC — concerns about handing over sensitive data.
Thousands of voters challenged, few successfully
The founder of EagleAI rarely gives interviews, let alone a lengthy public presentation. But in recent months, the State Election Board has faced growing pressure to act from conservative activists who say local election boards are not taking their voter challenges seriously.
Since 2021, a handful of individuals have challenged the eligibility of tens of thousands of voters. Most have been dismissed by local election boards for lacking probable cause.
In September, the state board initiated an investigation into eight, mostly heavily Democratic counties, assigning State Election Board Executive Director Mike Coan, a former Republican lawmaker, to lead it. Coan told the board in October he didn’t know much about voter challenges before he began his work. But he reported that he found local boards were making it “near impossible” for challenges to be heard.
“The challengers have way more sophisticated technology than our election departments have, the Secretary of State, or anybody else,” Coan said. “Our election guys are saying, ‘No, we’re not going to honor that.’ Well guess what, we’ve got to start thinking outside of the box.”
Coan was referring to programs like EagleAI, which counties have resisted embracing. Many local election boards have dismissed challenges relying on lists generated by EagleAI. County officials criticized Coan’s report.
“Every single policy that was adopted by Cobb County is based on the express language of Georgia law, federal law or case law,” Daniel White, an attorney who represents the Cobb County Election Board, testified. “And Mr. Coan didn’t ask me about it. He didn’t ask the board about it. He had a 20-minute conversation with our director and then came here today to give a narrative that apparently this board wants to set out into the public.”
State election board already facing controversy
The Republican majority on the State Election Board has been under fire in recent months for approving a string of last-minute rule changes that have been criticized by election officials and voting rights activists.
Many of the actions have been blocked by the courts, in part because judges found the board overstepped their rulemaking authority.
At the November board meeting, rather than pass two proposed rules, they approved a measure calling on the General Assembly to codify them instead.
One measure would require counties to post the names of every eligible voter before early voting begins. Another would make counties post the names after an election of every voter who cast a ballot.
The moves suggest the legislature could consider more changes to election law on topics like election certification and voter list maintenance when the General Assembly convenes in January.
