A new tool targets voter fraud in Georgia – but is it skirting the law?

A tech company supported by Donald Trump’s former lawyer has been facilitating mass challenges to voter registrations in Georgia. State officials say its methods are inaccurate and likely skirt state law.

Founded in the wake of the 2020 election, EagleAI, pronounced “Eagle Eye”, offers a tool that streamlines challenges to voter registrations. Pulling data from both public and purchased information, it allows anyone to investigate potential errors on voter registrations forms. With a few clicks to attach evidence of alleged disqualifying mistakes, EagleAI automatically fills out challenges to registrations. A local volunteer then downloads and emails them to their county election board. A successful challenge stops a person from voting unless they reregister.

These alleged issues vary in seriousness from a voter’s name missing a comma before “Jr” to a voter possibly being dead. Election experts say these discrepancies are usually not significant, and are periodically corrected with existing systems. EagleAI’s CEO, John W Richards Jr, however, believes that these errors are, at best, extremely serious, and at worst, indicative of widespread voter fraud, echoing former president Trump’s talking points. This fraud, he insists, disfranchises proper voters.

“Let’s say that a person is voting for their dead father – it happens a lot of times,” Richards, better known as “Dr Rick”, said on a January phone call with the Guardian. “A parent dies, they say, ‘But I know how my daddy would have voted. I’m gonna fill out his ballot.’ They have disenfranchised you.” Richards boasts of a background in family medicine and claims to have founded over 40 startups.

The company is a node within a much larger network of efforts, largely led by