On War Room, “Fight Voter Fraud” founder offers MAGA audience voter data for mass eligibility challenges in Georgia
Linda Szynkowicz: “You can have a list of people in your county that we believe should not be voting”
Written by Madeline Peltz
Research contributions from John Knefel
Published
On Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, Fight Voter Fraud founder Linda Szynkowicz encouraged her MAGA audience to request voter data so they can challenge the eligibility of people they believe should not have ballot access in Georgia.
Szynkowicz’s call to action comes amid a wave of harassment against election officials — and could potentially turn this tactic on the general voting public.
“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,” Szynkowicz said during the October 7 episode. “Do your due diligence. We’ll even teach you how to do it.”
Szynkowicz specifically singled out Georgia, where county election boards across the state are dealing with large batches of these voter challenges. From The Atlanta Journal Constitution:
Mass voter challenges have become a new front in the battle between partisan activists and local election boards. State laws passed in the wake of former President Donald Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election have empowered activists to contest an unlimited number of voters within the same county.
But a majority of challenges are rejected by county boards. Election officials often say the challenges lack credible evidence to prove that the challenged voter moved to a new state or jurisdiction, died or broke some other rule making them ineligible to vote.
“Over 350,000 voter challenges have been lodged since 2020,” the article continues. “County election officials have rejected the vast majority.”
Voter challenges in Georgia have been a tactic of national election denial groups. Cleta Mitchell, a former Trump lawyer and founder of the Election Integrity Network, developed software called Eagle AI that empowers “MAGA activists to generate mass voter challenges.” According to Documented, “Activists affiliated with EIN in states like Georgia, North Carolina, and Florida are already testing the Eagle AI system, and setting up meetings with election officials to normalize the program and encourage them to accept voter challenges generated by the platform.”
The Brennan Center for Justice notes that these types of challenges can be “intimidating” and “spread disinformation” when they are cited “as ‘proof’ that ineligible people are voting.” Former President Donald Trump, right-wing media, and GOP Congress members have fearmonged about the imaginary threat of mass noncitizen voting to create a cloud of doubt around November’s presidential election results.