The GOP’s policies are hilariously unpopular among Americans. Tax cuts for the rich, gutting labor rights, cuts to social spending, and of course limiting access to abortion are not winning messages. So how is it that right-wingers continue to win elections? Well, making it more difficult for citizens to participate in the democratic process has certainly helped conservative candidates’ odds in competitive races. Beyond the presidency, voter suppression efforts have made a difference in states like Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, and even Ohio.
For a case study in how conservative political operatives have weaponized voter suppression to their electoral advantage, take the Election Integrity Network, or EIN. EIN is an arm of the State Policy Network and the Conservative Partnership Institute, or CPI, which claims to want to “make it harder to cheat” at the ballot box. In reality, EIN is an organized network of voter suppression activists and conspiracy theorists who seek to surgically, meticulously, and cunningly dismantle the electoral process. Led by former Trump lawyer and vocal election conspiracy theorist Cleta Mitchell, the EIN recruits activists at the state level and trains them to target the registrations of potentially left-leaning voters in an effort to tilt the balance of the electorate toward conservative-leaning voters.
If Mitchell isn’t exactly a household name, that’s because her network conducts most of its activities behind the scenes, unlike its CPI contemporaries such as the Center for Renewing America and America First Legal. To accomplish its mission, EIN relies on claims of widespread voter fraud, a phantasmal canard that has been roundly debunked. While there are some federal policies that EIN opposes, such as the popular pro-democracy For the People Act, it focuses its work on the state level, collaborating with friendly state legislators, conducting robust opposition research, and coordinating messaging campaigns to undermine public trust in the integrity of elections.
EIN has chapters across the country that are working tirelessly to alter Americans’ perception of the vote. The group aims to convince the public that elections are not secure (they are), that there is widespread voter fraud (there is not), and that only certain groups of people should vote. What’s most terrifying is that they are finding some success.
The Guardian recently reported that Mitchell and her merry band of election truthers were designing a blueprint to subvert the Georgia voters’ choice this November. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, found that Mitchell’s organization, in concert with other right-wing outfits, has formed a voter suppression Voltron of sorts called the Georgia Election Integrity Coalition. The coalition’s goal is a rehash of the 2020 attempt to discredit the voice of Georgians with the message that any outcome other than a Trump victory in the Peach state should be deemed fraudulent.
CREW uncovered a tranche of emails from the Georgia Election Integrity Coalition detailing its policy proposals and messaging strategy to undermine the results of the presidential election in Georgia. One email included an article from the United Tea Party of Georgia with the headline “Georgia Democratic Party Threatens Georgia Election Officials,” falsely claiming the Georgia Democratic Party sent threatening letters to the county board of elections to certify the results of the election.
According to The Guardian, the emails also backed up previous reporting about two Trump-aligned state election board members who had passed two rules that now allow members to refuse to certify election results. This bogus idea that county board members should exercise a veto of voters’ will was the basis of Trump’s attempted coup. It’s hugely troubling that conservatives have identified this as a viable strategy to disenfranchise voters and undermine their preferences.
Ohio is another state where EIN’s agenda is resonating. The network’s Ohio state chapter played a key role in the effort to purge 20,000 voters from the rolls in Licking County, which had a huge population boom among Black and Asian residents. What’s more, the chapter collaborated with conservative lawmakers on a bill to eliminate voting machines so all ballots are counted by hand. In addition to adding a level of inefficiency, the bill would require a photo ID to register to vote, necessitating more voter roll maintenance.
In North Carolina, EIN met with state legislators who put together a bill that has been referred to as a “jumbo jet of a voter suppression bill.” In Pennsylvania, Cleta Mitchell spoke with a prominent voter suppression group on messaging tactics regarding the election. EIN also appears to have been part of the efforts of Wisconsin legislators to purge voter rolls in the state. All of these states are competitive on the state level and crucial at the national level, meaning Mitchell and EIN’s machinations to suppress voter turnout could have outsize ramifications beyond the affected populations.
One of Mitchell and EIN’s biggest wins has been provoking some states to leave the Electronic Registration Information Center, or ERIC. ERIC is the nonprofit member organization created and managed by state-level officials. Its members use a voter roll software that can accurately track and cull eligible voters. Mitchell held a summit in 2022 in which she presented a 29-page report on how ERIC was a threat to election integrity. Some of the secretaries of states from the first five states to pull out of ERIC—Louisiana, Florida, Missouri, West Virginia, and Ohio—were in attendance at that conference. ERIC also plays a role in helping states reach out to people who are not registered to vote. Mitchell pushed for states to move toward using her own organization’s software, Eagle AI.
Pronounced “Eagle Eyes,” this software is one of the most important tools at EIN’s disposal. It is a database tool that performs “maintenance” on voter rolls amassed by a web scraper. Eagle AI has been deployed to cook up the voter roll challenges by EIN and its allies. The database tries to match voter roll records with “accurate” information (such as addresses, obituaries, etc.) scraped from the internet to determine if any rolls are fraudulent.
The problem with this system is that the data is at best inconsistent. Some of the data that Eagle AI pulls is outdated, meaning that many of the voter roll challenges relying on the software as a primary source may be entirely inaccurate. The reality is that EIN’s Eagle AI is more likely to purge voters’ registration based on erroneous data than actually secure the integrity of our elections.
The Election Integrity Network’s actions should be viewed within the context of the larger network of right-wing activists to which it belongs. EIN is a member organization of the Virginia Fair Elections Coalition, a project of the Koch-funded State Policy Network’s Virginia Institute for Public Policy, or VIPP, and run by VIPP’s president, Lynn Taylon. The Virginia Fair Elections Coalition’s members utilize the Virginia Model—effectively a playbook on how to suppress election turnout.
The tactics include, but are not limited to, gathering information about electoral board members, training poll workers, creating platforms to share data related to elections, working with attorneys on election lawsuits, and creating intense messaging campaigns on the state (and national) level, claiming there is no actual voter suppression. On their face, these tactics may be considered a benign attempt to safeguard elections. But the coalition’s mission is far more sinister: subversion of voters’ rights and choices.
In the hands of the right, “election integrity” is a well-funded deception, nothing more than voter suppression repackaged in organization form. The trifecta of Cleta Mitchell, CPI, and EIN are working tirelessly ahead of the election to continue the frankly racist history of voter suppression with a new name. Absent real vigilance, these efforts could throw the election to a party whose ideas aren’t popular enough to survive a fair hearing.
