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Election denial groups and right-wing media figures are talking about their election interference plans as voting begins

Election denial groups have publicly talked about their plans to challenge voter rolls, monitor ballot drop boxes, and recruit and train poll workers to be a “spy in the camp” on Election Day

Written by Payton Armstrong

Research contributions from Media Matters Staff

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Election denial groups and some right-wing media figures have been discussing their plans to interfere in the 2024 voting process, building on previous efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and interfere with the 2022 midterm election.

Leading up to the 2024 presidential election, election denial groups and right-wing media figures have discussed their plans to challenge citizens’ right to vote, vowed to monitor drop boxes, claimed to be recruiting and training poll workers, launched apps to track supposed fraud on Election Day, and encouraged activists to monitor for noncitizen voting.

In the 2022 midterm elections, right-wing media supported election denial groups recruiting poll workers and poll watchers and asking for volunteers to monitor ballot drop boxes. These efforts had seemingly grown out of conspiracy theories from former President Donald Trump and right-wing media that the 2020 election was rife with voter fraud and had been stolen, culminating in a violent attempt to overturn the election by storming the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

As voting begins for the 2024 election, “election officials across the country are ramping up their security measures at polling places,” as reported by NBC News, including “beefing up law enforcement presence to donning bulletproof vests to deploying drones for surveillance amid an increasingly hostile environment.”

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  • Right-wing groups and media figures are encouraging challenges to voter rolls, including asking supporters to flag “suspicious voter[s]” with “Hispanic-sounding last names”

    • Election denial group True the Vote has urged followers to submit voter-eligibility complaints by using an app, resulting in thousands of challenges to voter registrations. True the Vote is run by Catherine Engelbrecht and Greg Phillips, who regularly promote the group’s activities in right-wing media. CNN reported: “One of the main drivers of the fruitless challenges is a conservative Texas-based nonprofit group called True the Vote, an election-monitoring organization that has long peddled debunked voter-fraud theories. The group’s founder, Catherine Engelbrecht, has called on followers to help clean voter rolls by using an app called IV3 that enables users to research voter data and submit voter-eligibility challenges to local election offices.” [CNN, 7/29/24; Media Matters, 1/26/23]
    • Cleta Mitchell — who leads the Election Integrity Network and has appeared frequently in right-wing media to promote the group and its activities, and fearmonger about noncitizen voting — was reportedly involved in helping the development of EagleAI for mass voter challenges in various states. As reported by Documented, “Eagle AI draws from public data sources like voter files and newspaper obituaries to build a dashboard for activists to conduct their own ‘list maintenance’ and generate potentially thousands of challenges to voter eligibility with a few clicks.” [Documented, 8/17/23; Media Matters, 6/14/24, 10/2/24]
    • Mitchell’s Election Integrity Network, a coalition of election-denying activists, has reportedly been recruiting people at the state level to “target the registrations of potentially left-leaning voters.” The New Republic reported that the coalition “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.” [The New Republic, 10/16/24]
    • In the last several months, the Ohio chapter of Election Integrity Network has reportedly “mounted a statewide effort to kick thousands of registered voters off the rolls in the runup to the 2024 election.” According to local reporting, at least 13 counties “have received thousands of voter registration challenges, the vast majority of which have been rejected” and that “most of those challenges, the officials say, come from locals identifying themselves as members of the Election Integrity Network.” [Cleveland.com, 9/25/24]
    • On CBS News, the head of the North Carolina chapter of the Election Integrity Network encouraged people to flag “Hispanic-sounding last names” for potential voter roll challenges. In an interview with the network, James Womack, head of the North Carolina Election Integrity Team, discussed creating a “list of suspicious voters” who may be on the voter rolls in North Carolina. CBS also aired a clip of a video in which Womack also said, “If you’ve got folks that you, that were registered and they’re missing information … and they were registered in the last 90 days before the election, and they've got Hispanic-sounding last names, that probably is, is a suspicious voter.” [Media Matters, 10/22/24; CBS News, 10/21/24]
    • On Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, the founder of Fight Voter Fraud, Linda Szynkowicz, offered the MAGA audience voter data for mass eligibility challenges in Georgia. “Go to our website, download the request data so you can have a list of people in your county that we believe should not be voting in your county, and you can actually hang on to those,” she said, adding, “Do your due diligence. We’ll even teach you how to do it.” [Media Matters, 10/7/24]

  • Right-wing groups and media figures have been recruiting and training poll workers and observers

    • Election Integrity Network claims to have recruited tens of thousands of “election integrity patriots” and holds regular online coordinating calls. [The Guardian, 10/21/24]
    • Right-wing group Judicial Watch announced that “as part of its ongoing election integrity efforts, its trained observers will monitor polling sites in Wisconsin on November 5.” Judicial Watch President and podcast host Tom Fitton was quoted in the press release saying, “Judicial Watch’s teams will monitor the election in Wisconsin to expose and deter any fraud.” Per Democracy Docket, Judicial Watch is “a right-wing legal group that’s constantly filing all manner of litigation against the government — Freedom of Information Act lawsuits, challenges to immigration policy, attempts to thwart environmental actions and any other issue that riles up Republicans. ‘Judicial Watch’s strategy is simple: Carpet-bomb the federal courts with Freedom of Information Act lawsuits,’ the New York Times wrote of the organization in a 2016 profile.” [Judicial Watch, 10/22/24; Democracy Docket, 6/11/24]
    • Tea Party Patriots, which sponsored Trump’s January 6 rally, is apparently doing “poll watcher trainings specifically in Georgia” in collaboration with Election Integrity Network. On War Room, election denial figure and Tea Party Patriots founder Jenny Beth Martin claimed her group is also partnering with Turning Point Action and America First Works on door knocking efforts. Martin also described the groups’ efforts in Georgia in a separate interview, saying they are “making sure that poll watchers are recruited and trained.” [Media Matters, 9/9/24, 1/30/24]
    • Right-wing group VoterGA — co-founded by Garland Favorito, who has fundraised for his election denial organization during appearances on a far-right show — collaborated with the Election Integrity Network on poll-watcher training. CNN reported that “VoterGA, a nonprofit led by a computer consultant-turned-activist named Garland Favorito who has a long history of promoting debunked conspiracy theories, has made inroads with some election officials.” In a phone interview with CNN, “Favorito argued that he and his group are fighting for election integrity and that some state and local officials have sought to cover-up elections malfeasance in Georgia. As an example, he cited his inability to review ballots from the 2020 election,” ignoring that state law requires for the ballots to be sealed after the elections. [CNN, 10/9/24; Media Matters, 6/14/23]
    • On the Christian nationalist program FlashPoint, Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump recruited poll watchers and promoted the RNC’s new “election integrity division” to “ensure that there is no funny business” in the election. During the appearance, Trump said that the RNC is working to stop “3:00 a.m. dumps” and “ballots in suitcases that miraculously appear places,” and she called on the audience to “volunteer to be part of our team, ballot harvest with us where it's legal, you know, be a poll watcher, be a poll worker.” [Media Matters, 5/30/24]
    • Christian nationalist “prophet” and podcast host Lance Wallnau has been traveling the country on his “Courage Tour” recruiting conservative Christians as poll workers to be a “spy in the camp” on Election Day. During Wallnau’s tour — which recently got a boost from Trump’s running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) — attendees were directed to a group called Lion of Judah, which ProPublica reported “offers a free course titled ‘Fight the Fraud,’ with modules detailing poll workers’ basic duties and helping people find their local elections offices so they can apply as well as email templates to streamline the process.” Notably, Wallnau has already declared that “there will be cheating” in the 2024 election. [ProPublica, 10/16/24; Media Matters, 9/27/24]
    • A Turning Point Action member used QAnon supporter Melody Jennings’ podcast to recruit poll workers in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The member, Brett Galaszewski, urged Jennings’ audience to become poll workers and get involved with the Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, Republican Party’s “Election Integrity Committee.” Jennings is an election denier who participated in election denial efforts during the 2022 elections by coordinating attempts to intimidate voters at ballot drop boxes. Jennings even took credit for armed men who staked out drop boxes in Arizona. [Media Matters, 11/15/23; The New York Times, 11/1/22]
    • Right-wing “Stop the Steal” activist Scott Presler, who has previously pushed the QAnon conspiracy theory, called on Donald Trump Jr.'s Rumble podcast audience to become poll workers and to investigate county voter rolls in Pennsylvania. [Media Matters, 9/5/24, 1/30/23]

  • True the Vote is planning to monitor ballot drop boxes for supposed fraud, including partnering with Steven Crowder and “working with sheriffs”

    • True the Vote claims to be planning to monitor ballot drop boxes in Michigan and Wisconsin with “24/7 streaming video” that will be “available for anyone.” On War Room, founder Catherine Engelbrecht declared, “This cycle, we do intend to have eyes on those drop boxes with surveillance footage.” [Media Matters, 9/5/24]
    • True the Vote also claims it “is reaching out to sheriffs across the country” to monitor ballot drop boxes. In different media interviews, Engelbrecht claimed to be working with “three very influential sheriffs” in Wisconsin and said the organization is offering local sheriffs “camera equipment” to monitor drop boxes and, in exchange, the public can livestream the footage to “see for themselves what’s happening.” [Media Matters, 8/6/24]
    • YouTuber Steven Crowder is apparently “partnering” with True the Vote for “the scoop” from the group’s drop box monitoring. True the Vote claims it has been “setting up teams and schedules for drop boxes” to monitor “with a little handheld camera” in multiple states and says Crowder is “opening up” the organization’s efforts “to a whole new crowd.” [Media Matters, 10/19/24]

  • Right-wing groups have launched apps, hotlines, and websites for people to report supposed voter fraud and issues at the polls on Election Day

    • True the Vote launched a new app for users “to quickly report problems at the polls” and “document and report instances of suspected election fraud” to funnel to local law enforcement. True the Vote claims to be “working with sheriffs” in Wisconsin and plans to funnel reports of supposed “problems at the polls” from users of its new app. [Media Matters, 9/12/24, 9/20/24, 8/6/24]
    • Election denial group The America Project launched an app “for people to hop on and report different things that they see that they know are illegal,” as described by the group’s Director of Rights & Freedoms, Amanda Freytes. The America Project was founded by former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne, who following the 2020 election, became one of the country’s biggest election denial funders. [Twitter/X, 10/5/24; Media Matters, 1/26/23]
    • Right-wing group United Sovereign Americans launched a new “election complaint” webpage, where people can submit supposed voter fraud to authorities. Founder Marly Hornik has promoted the webpage on War Room. [CNN, 10/23/24; Democracy Docket, 5/29/24]
    • Judicial Watch announced it “will run an Internet hotline for voters in all states to report suspicions of election and voter fraud.” The hotline’s poster asks people to send Judicial Watch a detailed email “if you witness any suspicious activity at your polling place, have issues with your voting machine, or witness voter fraud or intimidation.” [Judicial Watch, accessed 10/23/24, 10/23/24]
    • YouTuber Steven Crowder touted a plan to have “boots on the ground” on Election Day because “this already is election theft,” saying there will be a “live electoral integrity map” where his audience can “see any shenanigans going on” in real time. Crowder claimed there will be “investigative journalism units and team leaders, managers in every major swing city.” Crowder also said that he would be “partnering” with True the Vote for “Election Night,” and claimed that they “will have tens of thousands of volunteers” combined “watching hundreds of key polling locations and ballot drop boxes around the country.” [Media Matters, 9/23/24; Truth Social, 10/28/24]

  • Right-wing figures are also encouraging people to monitor for noncitizens voting, or registering to vote

    • During a so-called election integrity call, election denier Cleta Mitchell called on MAGA activists to watch their local Department of Motor Vehicles for noncitizen voter registration and distribute her group’s materials on the ground. Mitchell said: “There are things you can do in your local communities. Watching at your DMVs, watching - going to your election board, asking your local election officials what are you doing to ensure that noncitizen are not getting registered to vote and getting — we've got sample resolutions. We've got signs, you can download and leaflets you could hand out.” [Media Matters, 10/8/24]
    • On a Rumble live stream, Election Integrity Network leader Kerry Toloczko said that “we don't want noncitizen voting,” and she offered materials for right-wing activists who are planning to monitor for noncitizen voting at the local level. Toloczko, who has also appeared on Newsmax to push baseless claims of noncitizen voting, said that their activists are “everywhere” trying to “suppress the people who are trying to vote unlawfully,” asserting, “We have activists, grassroots activists, so we're handing these [signs] out in churches, in parking lots, in voting centers.” [Media Matters, 10/17/24, 10/18/24]
    • Wisconsin-based talk radio host Vicki McKenna urged her listeners to go to polling locations and “stand with very large signs that say in Spanish, ‘Noncitizens are not permitted to vote in the state of Wisconsin.’” McKenna warned of noncitizens voting and complained that “they don’t want you in the field. They don’t want you participating. They don’t want you observing elections.” [1310 WIBA, The Vicki McKenna Show, 10/18/24]