(NewsNation) — With just weeks to go before the 2024 election, some people have had to go out of their way to fight for their right to vote.
On Thursday, over 100 voters in Bryan County, Georgia, piled into an administrative building to prove they were eligible to vote after one woman filed a challenge to get more than 850 people removed from the voter registration rolls.
That woman, Jenifer Hilburn, was able to do so under a state law that allows a registered voter to challenge another person’s qualifications.
“We had never come across each other, so it’s like somebody stands out in the street and accuses you of some crime in your neighborhood,” David Goldrick, whose voter registration was challenged, told NewsNation affiliate WSAV.
Hilburn’s challenge was dismissed after she didn’t show up to the meeting.
Research suggests her efforts are part of a broader trend. Since the 2020 election, mass voter challenges have been on the rise.
In Georgia, just six people were responsible for submitting approximately 89,000 voter eligibility challenges in 2022, according to Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan group that monitors elections.
Elsewhere, Michigan saw a 55% increase in challenges between Sept. 2023 and May 2024, Protect Democracy found.
Those behind the challenges, which are often led by conservative activist groups, say they’re doing so in the name of election integrity and cast them as good government aimed at helping local officials clean up voter rolls.
However, research shows voter roll reviews can also be frivolous, discourage voter participation and burden local election officials.
Here’s what to know.
What are mass voter challenges?
Mass voter challenges are when one or a few individuals challenge the voting eligibility of many others, often people they have never met, according to Protect Democracy.
Forty-six states have laws that allow private citizens to challenge the eligibility of prospective voters, though the details vary widely from state to state, according to the Brennan Center for Justice — a left-leaning public policy think tank.
Those state statutes aren’t new but they have drawn increased public attention in recent years as the number of challenges has continued to grow.
A Protect Democracy review of 35,000 challenged records found that of the vast majority of recent challenges, 99%, allege that the challenged voters no longer live at their address and should be removed from the rolls.
Despite widespread GOP claims about non-citizen voting, the Protect Democracy analysis found that less than 0.1% of challenges were related to citizenship status.
Why are more voters being challenged?
Mass voter challenges have been around for a long time, but they’ve become more common following former President Donald Trump’s false claims about widespread voter fraud in the last presidential election.
“Frivolous mass pre-election challenges to voter eligibility have largely emerged as a result of efforts to stoke fear about false claims of voter fraud in the wake of the 2020 election,” Protect Democracy wrote in a recent report.
In some cases, those challenges have resulted in real consequences.
In the Detroit suburb of Waterford, a clerk removed 1,000 people from the rolls in response to a challenge request — a purge that went unnoticed by state election officials until the New York Times discovered it. The Michigan secretary of state’s office has since told the clerk to reinstate most of those voters, saying the removal did not follow the appropriate process.
Technology has also accelerated the trend.
Organizations like Texas-based True the Vote have continued to cast doubt on the outcome of the 2020 election and even developed software that’s meant to help supporters identify records to challenge.
Wired magazine reviewed True the Vote’s app code in 2022 and concluded that it ultimately used “an ineffective and unreliable methodology to determine who should remain on the rolls.”
Other groups, like the Campaign Legal Center, are trying to help local election offices navigate mass voter challenges and say challenges have been “weaponized by partisan actors.”
“Our democracy works best when every American can participate in it,” CLC’s Senior Vice President Paul Smith said in a statement. “These unfounded challenges are a waste of time and valuable resources.”
How common is voter fraud?
Most Americans (58%) are concerned that voter fraud will taint this year’s election, according to a recent NPR/PBS News/Marist Poll. However, research suggests fraud is extremely rare and typically amounts to a tiny fraction of the ballots cast.
After the 2020 election, the Associated Press reviewed every potential case of voter fraud in six battleground states and found fewer than 475 potential instances out of more than 25.5 million ballots cast for president.
In Georgia, which President Joe Biden won by nearly 12,000 votes, the AP found 64 votes flagged as suspicious. Almost 200 were flagged in Arizona, roughly 1.9% of Biden’s 10,457 vote winning margin.
In Ohio, Republican Secretary of State Frank LaRose identified 75 voters who allegedly cast a ballot in two states in 2020. Nearly 6 million people voted that year.
Nevertheless, LaRose emphasized that there had been 31 tie votes across the state since 2020, meaning the Presidential race may not be affected but “even one fraudulent vote could impact the future of an Ohio community.”
Last week, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Democrat, announced felony charges against four people for allegedly voting twice in the state’s August primary election.
“Despite common talking points by those who seek to instill doubt in our electoral process, double voting in Michigan is extremely rare,” Nessel said in a statement.