The Brennan Center at New York University’s School of Law warned in a report published Tuesday that voter challenges could impact this year’s midterms as well as future elections.
Voter challenges, defined by the left-leaning center, are a process where individuals and groups contest people’s eligibility to be on the rolls or cast ballots.
“Since 2020, mass voter challenges have become a key element in the campaign to use election integrity as a pretext for voter suppression,” the Brennan Center said. In 2024, election deniers lodged well more than 185,232 voter challenges, according to the Brennan Center, in addition to “spreading lies about widespread fraud, refusing to certify results, discrediting voting machines, engaging in bad faith poll watching” and “filing frivolous lawsuits.”
This year, the Brennan Center said, these mass voter challenges now have the support of the federal government, with the Department of Justice looking to get voter data from states and the District of Columbia.
During the 2026 election, voter “challenges will continue to be an integral strategy in the playbook to undermine the democratic process,” the Brennan Center said.
