Georgia County Signs Up to Use Voter Database Backed by Election Deniers
A suburban county in Georgia agreed Friday to use a new database of voter information endorsed by the election denial movement, a move that defied warnings from voting rights groups, election security experts and state election officials.
Columbia County, a heavily Republican county outside Augusta, is the first in the country known to have agreed to use the platform, called EagleAI. Its supporters claim the system will make it easier to purge the registers of ineligible voters.
Key proponents of this new system include Cleta Mitchell, a central figure in former President Donald J. Trump’s efforts to undermine the 2020 election, and the leader of the Election Integrity Network, a national coalition of activists built around the false idea that the 2020 election was stolen.
Ms. Mitchell and others have billed EagleAI as an alternative to the Election Registration Information Center, a widely used interstate system that made it easier for officials to track address changes and deaths while maintaining voter rolls. That system, known as ERIC, has become the subject of conspiracy theories and disinformation that prompted nine states to withdraw with few backup plans.
Ms. Mitchell declined to answer questions about the province’s decision.
At an election board meeting Friday, about 40 people packed the audience, with all speakers in favor of the new system, said Larry Wiggins, a Democratic member of the board who said he voted in favor.
Mr. Wiggins said he was hopeful the tool would help the province deal with the expected influx of voting eligibility challenges next year. A 2021 law made it easier for individuals to challenge large numbers of other voters’ registrations at once. These challenges often come from the same community of Republican activists who now help promote the EagleAI software.
EagleAI was developed by a retired Columbia County physician, John Richards Jr., who did not respond to a request for comment.
Georgia state officials who reviewed the EagleAI presentations found them to be riddled with errors and say the tools are unnecessary, according to documents from the groups American Oversight and Documented.
In May, William S. Duffey Jr., the chairman of Georgia’s State Election Board, sent a letter to the county election board warning that EagleAI’s software could violate state privacy laws and election statutes.
The province responded in November that it would not allow access to private voter information and that use of the tools would be limited.
In a statement, Georgia’s secretary of state noted that the state was still part of the Election Registration Information Center and that counties had to follow state laws.
Election experts have labeled the new system as unnecessary and flawed.
“EagleAI cannot be trusted to provide reliable information about who on the voter list is ineligible to remain there,” seven voting rights and election organizations wrote in a letter to the Columbia County commissioners. It continued: “It will alert you to false positives and waste your staff’s time.”
But Mr Wiggins said the board was not convinced. “We don’t put a lot of faith in letters from outside groups,” Mr. Wiggins said. “We pay more attention to local individuals.”