CUERO, Texas — Republican volunteers across Texas, participating in Project IV3, have reported unwanted attention from syndicated media. Project IV3 is an initiative that equips volunteers to review and submit likely ineligible voter registration records to their respective counties.
A republican spokesperson said that they have received numerous reports from volunteers across the country, expressing concern about CNN hounding them via phone, text, email, and in person. Reports are not only coming from Texas volunteers but also from Arizona and South Carolina.
The process that the DeWitt County elections office follows when receiving challenges is not clear, and efforts to contact the Elections Office have gone unanswered. The office found itself without an Elections Administrator shortly before the Primaries, leading to DeWitt County Clerk Natalie Carson taking on the role of elections administrator until a permanent replacement can be found.
Project IV3 is part of an expanding strategy by right-wing activists to utilize state laws that permit private citizens to challenge the eligibility of voters by submitting their names to the election office for investigation.
IV3 is a browser-based application used by TRUE THE VOTE, a nonprofit organization founded by Catherine Engelbrecht, based in Texas. The app aims to empower voters to verify accuracy, identify ineligible records, report findings to local authorities, and keep abreast of recent changes to local voter rolls. The organization’s objective is to proactively clean voter rolls with the belief that inaccurate registrations could lead to voter fraud, despite it being exceedingly rare in the US. True the Vote challenged the voter registrations of 364,000 Georgians. In Harris County it was used to challenge over 1,000 voter registrations. According to The New York Times, activists in Michigan tried to challenge 22,000 voter registrations for the state’s August primary.
Multiple news outlets have scrutinized the app’s functionality, suggesting it employs ineffective and unreliable methods for maintaining voter rolls. Experts warn that the app could misuse public data, potentially disenfranchising eligible voters instead of uncovering widespread fraud, which is almost non-existent. Simply changing one’s address with the Post Office could trigger a flag on one’s name due to the app’s algorithm, which tries to match voter roll names with USPS data.
Reports indicate that media outlets, such as CNN, have been approaching volunteers, tracking their movements, and filming them without obtaining consent. Volunteers have reported instances of film crews setting up in their yards and approaching their front doors with microphones for unsolicited interviews.
It appears that voters are pushing back against these volunteers, and CNN is said to be filing open records requests for all documents pertaining to “voter challenges.” This obliges counties to reply and grants CNN access to details about the volunteers and any voter records submitted.