An Election Denial Group Has Spent Months Compiling ‘Suspicious Voter’ Lists in North Carolina

A group in North Carolina with more than 2,000 members is compiling lists of so-called “suspicious voters” in their state with the intent of challenging their votes en masse on Election Day and the days following. The technology comes from EagleAI Network, a company that helps identify potential targets of voter challenges and facilitate the filings.

According to weekly emails sent to members of the North Carolina Election Integrity Team (NCEIT) and reviewed by WIRED, the group has used EagleAI Network since at least August to develop “Suspicious Voters Lists.”

These so-called “suspicious” voters could be people who made clerical errors on their voter registrations, such as misspelling a street name; people whose personal information differs between EagleAI Network’s different databases, such as two different home addresses if someone recently moved; or people who died but haven’t been removed from EagleAI Network’s most recent voter rolls. Challengers assume these errors are not routine discrepancies but evidence of systematic voter fraud and a shadowy plot to foil the presidential election.

An email from October 28 lists grounds to challenge a voter or “investigate further.” Voters to challenge, it says, include same-day registrants, US service members overseas, or people with homestead exemptions, a home tax exemption for vulnerable individuals, such as elderly or disabled people, in cases where there are anomalies with their registration or address. Meanwhile, the email says people who merit further investigation include those who voted from a college dorm, people who registered from a PO Box, and people with “inactive” voter status.

“We continue to work on developing ‘Suspicious Registrant Lists’ for each county to use in monitoring (and possibly challenging) illegal voting,” two emails sent in October read. “We are still working on scripts and methods to automate the process of updating and transmitting the lists.”

Several emails explicitly mention EagleAI Network’s role in this effort. In one portion of the weekly meetings, the agendas mention a “Status Update” on what’s described alternatingly as “Eagle AI [sic] & Generating Suspicious Voters Lists” and “Eagle AI & NC Voter List Maintenance.” One September email says this update would include a “Debrief from 8:30PM call on Monday night with Dr. Richards,” referring to John W. Richards Jr., the CEO of EagleAI Network.

In response to a request for comment, Richards tells WIRED that EagleAI Network “has no relationships with entities” and, rather, “is used by individuals.”

“We do not ask people whether they work with groups,” Richards says.

The NCEIT is affiliated with the nationwide Election Integrity Network (EIN), whose members allege without evidence that the US is plagued with voter fraud. The EIN was created by Cleta Mitchell, Donald Trump’s former lawyer who was present on the 2020 phone call in which Trump asked the Georgia secretary of state to “find” him nearly 12,000 votes.