Since May, Denton County has received about 17,000 challenges to local voter rolls, Elections Administrator Frank Phillips said.
True the Vote, a Texas-based conservative election-monitoring organization, has been sending complaints nationwide about inaccurate voter rolls with the goal of preventing voter fraud.
Founder Catherine Engelbrecht asks people to use that lets them research voter records and submit voter eligibility challenges to local election offices.
Phillips said the has faced three categories of voter eligibility challenges.
鈥淭hey鈥檙e basically following three categories,鈥� he said. 鈥淭he vast majority of them are people that they believe had moved and no longer live at that address, because they did a national change of address with the post office. That is, overwhelmingly, the majority. They sent a few 鈥� where they think a person is deceased [claiming] that we still have on the rolls. 鈥� The third category 鈥� they鈥檙e questioning is if it鈥檚 a commercial address versus a residential.鈥�
Wired magazine that little is known about the IV3 app because it isn鈥檛 active in most states and requires users to and images of the front and back of their identification. Wired analyzed the code and found the app 鈥渦ses an ineffective and unreliable methodology to determine who should remain on the rolls.鈥�
According to , True the Vote says nearly 7,000 people have used IV3 to complete nearly 650,000 voter challenges in 1,322 counties across the U.S.
Phillips said the organization鈥檚 data is outdated, and he has disputed claims about voter roll inaccuracy.
鈥淚t looks like they鈥檝e probably got their database, wherever they got it 鈥� I鈥檓 guessing at the end of last year because we mail out a bunch of registration cards in January, when those start coming back as undeliverable,鈥� Phillips said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 when we put people in suspense.鈥�
Being on the voter suspense list 鈥渕eans your county does not know your address or it thinks you moved, often because a voter registration card sent through the mail is returned as undeliverable,鈥� according to
鈥淧robably 75% of what they [True the Vote users] submitted, we had already taken some type of action,鈥� Phillips said. 鈥淲e had already put them in suspense because we mailed 鈥� their voter registration card, and it came back to us, or some other kind of notification, or we already canceled them out of the system.鈥�
He said voter registration records are fluid because people move constantly.
鈥淚t鈥檚 never a static document,鈥� Phillips said. 鈥淚f I printed you a voter registration database this morning, it would not be the same voter registration database when printed this afternoon.鈥�
Critics have raised questions about True the Vote鈥檚 legitimacy, as Engelbrecht has been accused of using and making .
The group also told a Georgia judge it its claims of illegal ballot stuffing during the 2020 general election.
The Denton Record-Chronicle reached out to True the Vote and had yet to receive a response as of Tuesday evening.