By Fredreka Schouten and Curt Devine, CNN/StyleMagazine.com Newswire

Voting rights groups are urging election officials to reject a new tool championed by some conservatives as a way to root out fraudulent voter registrations – arguing that the private software depends on unreliable information and could be used to improperly disenfranchise legitimate voters.

The leaders of the group behind the new effort, known as EagleAI NETwork, describe the software as “the tool of reckoning across the nation” to help validate, maintain and review election rosters, according to a document provided to the Georgia State Elections Board and obtained by CNN through a public records request.

The document also touts the platform’s ability to allow people “interested in voter roll accuracy and integrity” to do their own reviews of voter registrations after getting a “license and credentials.”

Critics have cast the push as an outgrowth of the deep skepticism around election administration that has taken root among some Republicans following Donald Trump’s 2020 loss. Georgia, a key battleground state Trump lost and where EagleAI NETwork is based, has been ground zero for mass challenges by conservative activists seeking – largely unsuccessfully – to remove tens of thousands of voters from the rolls in recent elections.

“EagleAI is another front on the attacks on elections,” said Andrew Garber, a counsel in the Voting Rights and Elections Program at the liberal-leaning Brennan Center for Justice. Garber co-authored a recent analysis that called on states and local governments to reject outright any voter registration challenges generated by the software and to bar officials from using it. The report cast the tool as seemingly part of a “larger plan to move away from responsible voter list maintenance” that could undermine voting rights.

Among Brennan’s concerns: The data that EagleAI NETwork plans to use will not “contain enough identifying details to confidently match individuals,” leading its users to potentially target legitimate voters for removal from the rolls.

In an interview with CNN, EagleAI NETwork’s founder, Dr. John W. “Rick” Richards Jr., called the Brennan criticism “total BS.”

“We are trying to help validate the voter rolls to improve the integrity of that part of the process,” he said.

Richards, a physician, said people trained to use the software will share only “accurate” data about potentially ineligible voters with election officials – after reviewing multiple sources of information, including voter rolls, death records from the Social Security Administration, national change-of-address data and publicly available material, such as newspaper obituaries.

He said the program’s leaders have spoken to “people in 23 states,” including “quite a few” election officials, but no contracts have been signed. He declined to identify the election officials with whom he has had discussions.

Richards also sent CNN a written response to the Brennan report, saying that his effort is not “part of any larger plan” and that final decisions on how to address potentially problematic voter registrations flagged by the software would rest solely with election officials.