In June, a nascent right-wing group in Nevada sent more than a thousand names to 10 county clerks and registrars in an effort to have them removed from the state’s voter rolls. Similar efforts are 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 spread dangerous and false allegations of voter fraud and other election conspiracy theories, his most loyal supporters are now trying to turn out millions of registered voters ahead of the November election. The endeavor has evolved into a cottage industry of self-styled election integrity groups that recruit small armies of volunteers to try to identify registered voters they believe should be purged from state and local voter rolls.

It’s hard to fully grasp the scale of these efforts. The ecosystem consists of smaller hyperlocal grassroots groups like the Pigpen Project in Nevada and North of 29 in Wisconsin, as well as larger groups — like the Cleta Mitchell-backed Election Integrity Network (EIN), True the Vote, and United Sovereign Americans — that coordinate cross-state efforts to challenge voters. At the heart of the question is how these groups obtain voter registration data to launch these mass challenges. True the Vote and EIN have even developed their own software — IV3 and EagleAI, respectively — that uses incomplete or flawed voter registration data, leading to dozens of mass challenges to the registration status of legally registered voters.

Yet the recent surge in mass voter challenges is placing an enormous burden on county clerks, registrars, secretaries of state and other election officials tasked with maintaining clean voter rolls. “There is a legal process in place to challenge a voter’s residency and eligibility. These third-party efforts to exclude voters do not follow those processes, and it is important that voters know we follow the law,” Bethany Drysdale, a spokeswoman for the county clerk’s office in Washoe County, Nevada, said in a recent emailed statement to Democracy Docket. “It is a voter’s responsibility to update their registration by notifying our office, and without their consent, extensive steps established by law must be taken before we can make any changes that would affect their eligibility to vote.”

Despite the flood of right-wing misinformation, disinformation, and legal battles over the past four years that collectively create the false impression that most states’ voter rolls are inaccurate, the opposite is true: States generally maintain very accurate voter rolls, and the regular processes for weeding out inactive or ineligible voters work as they should.

“Election officials already have processes in place to ensure their voter rolls are accurate,” Lizzie Ulmer, senior vice president of strategy and communications at the States United Democracy Center, said in an email to Democracy Docket.

“These anti-democratic groups are abusing the system and wasting local officials’ time and resources – all based on unreliable data and election lies. This is not the first time we have seen bad actors attempt to undermine our elections. These mass challenges are part of the anti-democratic game plan.”

Democracy Docket identified eight groups leading right-wing efforts to challenge the voter registrations of millions of voters across the country. It’s important to note that the activities of these groups do not represent the entirety of mass challenge efforts—each state has its own laws that specify exactly who can challenge voter registrations. And some states, like Georgia, have made it easier for ordinary citizens to challenge voter registrations on a large scale.

Election Integrity Network (EIN)

Founded in 2021 by former Trump attorney Cleta Mitchell, EIN is one of the largest groups leading voter challenge efforts. EIN initially began as a large-scale, well-funded initiative to recruit thousands of poll workers and poll watchers for the 2022 midterm elections. Since then, that effort has expanded to foster a coalition of diverse state groups advocating for various anti-democratic policies at the local level.

Last year, EIN-affiliated activists launched EagleAI—an incomplete and flawed voter registration database—and local EIN groups used the software to launch voter registration challenges in several swing states.

Active states: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Texas

Approves the vote

Although Texas-based True the Vote The group’s efforts to block voters date back to 2011. The group is behind the IV3 software, which contains inaccurate voter registration data used to challenge voter rolls across the country. Ahead of the 2021 U.S. Senate runoff elections in Georgia, the group was behind a mass effort to cancel 360,000 voter registrations. Recently, True the Vote has been flooding election officials in Texas with voter registration challenges. True the Vote is using its IV3 software to support voter challenge efforts in at least California, New York, and Washington, according to Documented.

Active states: California, Georgia, New York, Texas, Washington

The People’s Audit

The People’s Audit was originally founded in Florida in 2020 to analyze the state’s voter rolls, according to Documented, but has since expanded its efforts. The group says it is analyzing and challenging voter rolls in Georgia, North Carolina and Texas. In May, failed Republican U.S. Senate candidate from Nevada Jeff Gunter announced a partnership with The People’s Audit to “clean” voter rolls in the state.

Active states: Florida, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina, Texas

United Sovereign Americans (USA)

USA was founded in 2024 by Marly Hornik, a right-wing activist who also launched NY Citizens Audit in 2022, a self-described “nonpartisan group of citizens committed to restoring and upholding the essential American founding principle of sovereignty through honest, verifiable elections in New York and across the country.”

The U.S. has recruited and trained volunteers across the country to inspect and challenge voter roll records in their communities, but its main effort has been to file two lawsuits challenging the maintenance and accuracy of voter rolls in Maryland and Pennsylvania.

Active states: Maryland, Pennsylvania

Pigpen Project

The Pigpen Project was founded in 2023 by conservative activist Chuck Muth to “clean up” Nevada’s voter rolls. It recruits volunteers to identify and submit names to county election officials for removal from the rolls. According to the New York Times, the group works with EIN, True the Vote and Vote Ref – another unreliable database of semi-public voter information – to identify voters. Muth himself admits that the group is also active “on the ground” going door-to-door in the Silver State to confirm voter registrations.

Active states: Nevada

North of 29

Another group recruiting volunteers for door-to-door campaigning is the Wisconsin-based group North of 29. The group, which was founded in 2020 by Stephanie Forrer-Harbridge, according to The Guardian, is campaigning in at least 72 Wisconsin counties with the help of known election denier Mike Lindell.

Active states: Wisconsin

Soles to the roll

Soles to the Roll is the name of the initiative by Michigan Fair Elections, the state’s EIN offshoot, to challenge voter registrations across the state. The group recruits and trains volunteers to use another notoriously unreliable database – Check My Vote – to identify potential voters and report them to election officials.

Active states: Michigan

Iowa Election Advertising

In 2022 and 2023, Iowa Canvassing challenged nearly a thousand voter registrations in Linn and Black Hawk counties, resulting in more than 500 registration cancellations. The group formed sometime after the 2020 election as a “grassroots group of volunteers who keep Iowa’s voter rolls clean to ensure fair and trustworthy elections,” according to local reporting, and uses a mix of data research, door-to-door campaigning, and volunteer work at polling places to identify voter registrations that can be challenged.

Active states: Iowa