Election Integrity
Early Warnings
Early Warnings
- How the Democrats and the Left Plan to Undermine the Security of Future Elections
November 6, 2022
Dems Put Their Thumb on the Scale
Justice Department Hunting for Voter Intimidation and Discrimination on Election Day
Fox News
The Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA) warns:
*The Justice Department released a summary of its "comprehensive" Election Day plan Wednesday and said it is aimed at ensuring that "all qualified voters have the opportunity to cast their ballots and have their votes counted free of discrimination, intimidation or fraud in the election process.
*The plan says the Civil Rights Division will conduct monitoring in the field and that Civil Rights Division attorneys will be prepared to receive complaints that day. It also said prosecutors at the Public Integrity Section will be on duty while polls are open to take election integrity complaints and that DOJ is prepared to hear complaints about intimidation at the polls and practices that have a "discriminatory purpose or a discriminatory result."
*FGA Legal Director Stewart Whitson said he's worried DOJ will focus these efforts only on Republican-led states on Election Day in a bid to prop up chances for a Democratic victory
Evidence Found Biden Voter Registration Effort Is Intended to Help Democrats
Just the News
*Congressional investigators have obtained evidence that the Biden administration has launched a sprawling effort to use federally funded job training and food stamp programs to register new voters in Democrat-skewing demographic groups such as young adults and Native Americans, fueling concerns the federal government is placing a partisan thumb on the scales in the midterm elections.
*Part of the plan, spurred by a 2021 executive order by President Joe Biden, is captured in an eight-page memo that the Labor Department's Employment and Training Administration sent out in March to state and local officials responsible for providing training to workers in need of jobs.
*The memo explicitly authorizes states to use the American Job Center Network, a federally-funded job training program with more than 2,000 outlets nationwide, to facilitate voter registration among workers seeking its help, specifically targeting Native American, youth and farm workers.
Elections Officials Turn to P.R. Techniques
NHPR
*Jennifer Morrell is with The Elections Group. They provide PR help to local election officials, who Morrell says are doing the best they can with limited resources.
*MORRELL: And if we invested in elections like it was that sort of critical function in our democracy, every single election office would have a communications professional working for them. It's that critical.
Comment: Helping confused voters sounds benign, until you realize Jennifer Morrell is not a credible source. She was seen partying with Dominion’s Eric Coomer and Colorado Dems and election officials. She has ties to multiple left-wing groups. This publication warned about her a year ago. So this whole business about getting elections officials tuned into P.R. techniques should not be taken at face value.
18 Million Ballots Will Go Missing in the 2022 Elections
National Vote at Home Institute
*Our initial forecast (as of 10/14): Mailed-out ballot activity will increase at least 40% in 2022 versus 2018 levels – to an estimated 60 million mailed-out, with over 42 million returned.
Comment: Other than that, mail-in voting is WONDERFUL! What could possibly go wrong with 18 million missing ballots?
Dems Put Their Thumb on the Scale
Justice Department Hunting for Voter Intimidation and Discrimination on Election Day
Fox News
The Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA) warns:
*The Justice Department released a summary of its "comprehensive" Election Day plan Wednesday and said it is aimed at ensuring that "all qualified voters have the opportunity to cast their ballots and have their votes counted free of discrimination, intimidation or fraud in the election process.
*The plan says the Civil Rights Division will conduct monitoring in the field and that Civil Rights Division attorneys will be prepared to receive complaints that day. It also said prosecutors at the Public Integrity Section will be on duty while polls are open to take election integrity complaints and that DOJ is prepared to hear complaints about intimidation at the polls and practices that have a "discriminatory purpose or a discriminatory result."
*FGA Legal Director Stewart Whitson said he's worried DOJ will focus these efforts only on Republican-led states on Election Day in a bid to prop up chances for a Democratic victory
Evidence Found Biden Voter Registration Effort Is Intended to Help Democrats
Just the News
*Congressional investigators have obtained evidence that the Biden administration has launched a sprawling effort to use federally funded job training and food stamp programs to register new voters in Democrat-skewing demographic groups such as young adults and Native Americans, fueling concerns the federal government is placing a partisan thumb on the scales in the midterm elections.
*Part of the plan, spurred by a 2021 executive order by President Joe Biden, is captured in an eight-page memo that the Labor Department's Employment and Training Administration sent out in March to state and local officials responsible for providing training to workers in need of jobs.
*The memo explicitly authorizes states to use the American Job Center Network, a federally-funded job training program with more than 2,000 outlets nationwide, to facilitate voter registration among workers seeking its help, specifically targeting Native American, youth and farm workers.
Elections Officials Turn to P.R. Techniques
NHPR
*Jennifer Morrell is with The Elections Group. They provide PR help to local election officials, who Morrell says are doing the best they can with limited resources.
*MORRELL: And if we invested in elections like it was that sort of critical function in our democracy, every single election office would have a communications professional working for them. It's that critical.
Comment: Helping confused voters sounds benign, until you realize Jennifer Morrell is not a credible source. She was seen partying with Dominion’s Eric Coomer and Colorado Dems and election officials. She has ties to multiple left-wing groups. This publication warned about her a year ago. So this whole business about getting elections officials tuned into P.R. techniques should not be taken at face value.
18 Million Ballots Will Go Missing in the 2022 Elections
National Vote at Home Institute
*Our initial forecast (as of 10/14): Mailed-out ballot activity will increase at least 40% in 2022 versus 2018 levels – to an estimated 60 million mailed-out, with over 42 million returned.
Comment: Other than that, mail-in voting is WONDERFUL! What could possibly go wrong with 18 million missing ballots?
October 27, 2022
Dems Keep Pounding Their Pathetic Little Election Narratives
Democrats see any attempt to secure elections as ‘voter suppression’. It doesn’t get any more warped than that. But pounding pathetic little narratives is all they have, while events showing real problems with our elections are piling up daily, problems the Democrats caused and never talk about.
Dems Allergic to Election Integrity Laws
Brennan Center
*Between January 1, 2021, and September 12, 2022, at least 21 states enacted 42 laws restricting access to voting. Of those, 33 restrictive laws are in effect for the midterms in 20 states.
*These laws will have differing impacts on voters. Some are omnibus bills with multiple provisions that restrict voter access, while others are narrower in scope. But taken together, they represent a dramatic restrictive shift in the rules that govern elections in many states since 2020.
*The majority of the restrictive laws passed since 2021 coalesce around the conspiracy theory that increased mail voting led to rampant voter fraud. Several states expanded mail voting options in 2020 to ensure safe access to the vote during the pandemic.
*There are at least 21 new restrictions on mail voting in effect in 2022. They may not all have the dramatic impact of TX S.B. 1, but the sheer number of additional hurdles some voters face when casting a ballot by mail is staggering.
Comments: Notice the framing - the new laws ‘restrict access’ and “represent a dramatic restrictive shift.” The “sheer number of additional hurdles ... is staggering.” Oh, the horror! But anyone not blinded by ideology can see through this framing and be thankful someone is finally paying attention to election integrity. If these new laws are so ‘restrictive’, how can voter turnout be way up in Georgia, Land of ‘Jim Crow 2.0’? If mail-in voting was introduced in many places due to the pandemic, why is it still in use when the pandemic is over? A New York judge just ruled COVID cannot be used as an excuse for continued mail-in voting in the state, it’s unconstitutional. Everywhere you turn, you find the Democrats’ election narratives are as phony as a $3 bill.
Voting Is So-o-o Hard! Sure.
AP
*Georgia is one of several states where voters will face new hurdles to casting a ballot during the November election under laws passed by Republican-led legislatures following former President Donald Trump’s false claims that voter fraud cost him reelection in 2020. The restrictions have prompted groups that assist voters to reorient themselves so they can avoid running afoul of new barriers.
Dems Suffer Drop Box Withdrawal Symptoms
NPR
*More than half of the roughly 550,000 voters who cast their ballot using a drop box in the state's 2020 general election lived in four metro Atlanta counties — Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton and Gwinnett — where about 50% of the voters are people of color.
*Under the new law, the number of drop boxes in these four counties plummeted from 107 to 25. *Nearly 1.9 million people, a quarter of the state's voters, have seen their travel time to a drop box increase from the 2020 election.
Comments: This story actually has some balance in it. Here’s the other side of the brief as set forth in the article -
*"Drop boxes were introduced as an emergency measure during the pandemic, but many counties did not follow the security guidelines in place," Georgia Senate President Pro Tem Butch Miller said after proposing that drop boxes be banned altogether. "Moving forward, we can return to a pre-pandemic normal of voting in person. Removing drop boxes will help rebuild the trust that has been lost."
There They Go Again, Claiming Republicans Are Out to Sabotage the Elections
HuffPost
*Some election experts fear that individuals seeking to produce evidence of widespread voter fraud — even when it doesn’t exist — could end up in sensitive election roles, allowing them to stir chaos with claims of fraud or wrongdoing.
*“There’s been growing concern about reports of a well-organized, well-funded campaign to recruit individuals sympathetic to claims of election fraud and train them to be precinct committeemen, election judges, poll workers, poll watchers and unofficial observers,”
*With openings across the country for seasonal poll workers and more senior election positions, Republican Party officials have been aggressive about holding poll watcher trainings, and GOP legislators across the country have worked to give partisan election observers and challengers more access to the election process.
Democrat Standard Operating Procedure: Parading Victims in Florida
Miami Herald
*Body-worn camera footage recorded by local police captured the confusion and outrage of Hillsborough County residents who found themselves in handcuffs for casting a ballot following investigations by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ new Office of Election Crimes and Security.
*The Aug. 18 arrests — conducted hours before DeSantis called a news conference to tout his crackdown on alleged voter fraud — were carried out by state police officers accompanied by local law enforcement.
*Of the 19 people arrested, 12 were registered as Democrats and at least 13 are Black, the Herald/Times found.
*Romona Oliver, 55, was about to leave for work when police walked up her driveway at 6:52 a.m. and told her they had a warrant for her arrest.
*DeSantis’ voter fraud arrests are being carried out by the Office of Statewide Prosecution, which is restricted by law to prosecuting crimes, including voting, involving two or more judicial circuits. Those crimes are usually “complex, often large scale, organized criminal activity,” according to its website.
Comments: ‘What is wrong with this state?’, the article asks. The real question is, ‘What is wrong with these journalists?’ The other side of the story is completely missing. We don’t know what evidence the state has. Only sympathetic sources were quoted, not a single source involved in the enforcement effort or DeSantis’ office. One-sided coverage - what else would you expect from the Miami Herald, a card-carrying member of the Liberal-Media Establishment? Three cheers for ‘advocacy journalism’!
The Dems’ Go-To Bugaboo of ‘Misinformation’
Dallas Morning News
*Many of the most-used social media networks, including Facebook and Twitter, have taken steps in recent years to label and moderate false information. But experts say those companies could be doing more, and are worried about apps like TikTok and WhatsApp that have exploded in popularity since the last election.
*“That would include voter myths or disinformation which could either cause the voter to miss the chance to participate because they believed incorrect information, or cause them to not participate at all because they don’t believe in the integrity of the election process,” Littlewood said.
Comment: Voter suppression. Election deniers. Misinformation. Stock narratives they’ve been pounding for months, that’s all the Democrats have. Meanwhile, just recently, we’ve learned that people in Arizona have been indicted for illegal ballot harvesting; Maricopa County in Arizona has systematically been hiring more Democrats than Republicans as poll watchers; and Pennsylvania has been counting undated mail-in ballots in violation of state law. That just scratches the surface of the very real problems with our elections all across the land. But the Democrats never talk about the problems, because they CAUSED them. All the Democrats do is pound their pathetic little narratives and hope you won’t see through their schemes. That may be good for riling up their base, but it doesn’t cut it for the rest of us, not even close. We won’t stop until the job is done and we have free and fair elections again.
Comment: Voter suppression. Election deniers. Misinformation. Stock narratives they’ve been pounding for months, that’s all the Democrats have. Meanwhile, just recently, we’ve learned that people in Arizona have been indicted for illegal ballot harvesting; Maricopa County in Arizona has systematically been hiring more Democrats than Republicans as poll watchers; and Pennsylvania has been counting undated mail-in ballots in violation of state law. That just scratches the surface of the very real problems with our elections all across the land. But the Democrats never talk about the problems, because they CAUSED them. All the Democrats do is pound their pathetic little narratives and hope you won’t see through their schemes. That may be good for riling up their base, but it doesn’t cut it for the rest of us, not even close. We won’t stop until the job is done and we have free and fair elections again.
Dems Keep Pounding Their Pathetic Little Election Narratives
Democrats see any attempt to secure elections as ‘voter suppression’. It doesn’t get any more warped than that. But pounding pathetic little narratives is all they have, while events showing real problems with our elections are piling up daily, problems the Democrats caused and never talk about.
Dems Allergic to Election Integrity Laws
Brennan Center
*Between January 1, 2021, and September 12, 2022, at least 21 states enacted 42 laws restricting access to voting. Of those, 33 restrictive laws are in effect for the midterms in 20 states.
*These laws will have differing impacts on voters. Some are omnibus bills with multiple provisions that restrict voter access, while others are narrower in scope. But taken together, they represent a dramatic restrictive shift in the rules that govern elections in many states since 2020.
*The majority of the restrictive laws passed since 2021 coalesce around the conspiracy theory that increased mail voting led to rampant voter fraud. Several states expanded mail voting options in 2020 to ensure safe access to the vote during the pandemic.
*There are at least 21 new restrictions on mail voting in effect in 2022. They may not all have the dramatic impact of TX S.B. 1, but the sheer number of additional hurdles some voters face when casting a ballot by mail is staggering.
Comments: Notice the framing - the new laws ‘restrict access’ and “represent a dramatic restrictive shift.” The “sheer number of additional hurdles ... is staggering.” Oh, the horror! But anyone not blinded by ideology can see through this framing and be thankful someone is finally paying attention to election integrity. If these new laws are so ‘restrictive’, how can voter turnout be way up in Georgia, Land of ‘Jim Crow 2.0’? If mail-in voting was introduced in many places due to the pandemic, why is it still in use when the pandemic is over? A New York judge just ruled COVID cannot be used as an excuse for continued mail-in voting in the state, it’s unconstitutional. Everywhere you turn, you find the Democrats’ election narratives are as phony as a $3 bill.
Voting Is So-o-o Hard! Sure.
AP
*Georgia is one of several states where voters will face new hurdles to casting a ballot during the November election under laws passed by Republican-led legislatures following former President Donald Trump’s false claims that voter fraud cost him reelection in 2020. The restrictions have prompted groups that assist voters to reorient themselves so they can avoid running afoul of new barriers.
Dems Suffer Drop Box Withdrawal Symptoms
NPR
*More than half of the roughly 550,000 voters who cast their ballot using a drop box in the state's 2020 general election lived in four metro Atlanta counties — Cobb, DeKalb, Fulton and Gwinnett — where about 50% of the voters are people of color.
*Under the new law, the number of drop boxes in these four counties plummeted from 107 to 25. *Nearly 1.9 million people, a quarter of the state's voters, have seen their travel time to a drop box increase from the 2020 election.
Comments: This story actually has some balance in it. Here’s the other side of the brief as set forth in the article -
*"Drop boxes were introduced as an emergency measure during the pandemic, but many counties did not follow the security guidelines in place," Georgia Senate President Pro Tem Butch Miller said after proposing that drop boxes be banned altogether. "Moving forward, we can return to a pre-pandemic normal of voting in person. Removing drop boxes will help rebuild the trust that has been lost."
There They Go Again, Claiming Republicans Are Out to Sabotage the Elections
HuffPost
*Some election experts fear that individuals seeking to produce evidence of widespread voter fraud — even when it doesn’t exist — could end up in sensitive election roles, allowing them to stir chaos with claims of fraud or wrongdoing.
*“There’s been growing concern about reports of a well-organized, well-funded campaign to recruit individuals sympathetic to claims of election fraud and train them to be precinct committeemen, election judges, poll workers, poll watchers and unofficial observers,”
*With openings across the country for seasonal poll workers and more senior election positions, Republican Party officials have been aggressive about holding poll watcher trainings, and GOP legislators across the country have worked to give partisan election observers and challengers more access to the election process.
Democrat Standard Operating Procedure: Parading Victims in Florida
Miami Herald
*Body-worn camera footage recorded by local police captured the confusion and outrage of Hillsborough County residents who found themselves in handcuffs for casting a ballot following investigations by Gov. Ron DeSantis’ new Office of Election Crimes and Security.
*The Aug. 18 arrests — conducted hours before DeSantis called a news conference to tout his crackdown on alleged voter fraud — were carried out by state police officers accompanied by local law enforcement.
*Of the 19 people arrested, 12 were registered as Democrats and at least 13 are Black, the Herald/Times found.
*Romona Oliver, 55, was about to leave for work when police walked up her driveway at 6:52 a.m. and told her they had a warrant for her arrest.
*DeSantis’ voter fraud arrests are being carried out by the Office of Statewide Prosecution, which is restricted by law to prosecuting crimes, including voting, involving two or more judicial circuits. Those crimes are usually “complex, often large scale, organized criminal activity,” according to its website.
Comments: ‘What is wrong with this state?’, the article asks. The real question is, ‘What is wrong with these journalists?’ The other side of the story is completely missing. We don’t know what evidence the state has. Only sympathetic sources were quoted, not a single source involved in the enforcement effort or DeSantis’ office. One-sided coverage - what else would you expect from the Miami Herald, a card-carrying member of the Liberal-Media Establishment? Three cheers for ‘advocacy journalism’!
The Dems’ Go-To Bugaboo of ‘Misinformation’
Dallas Morning News
*Many of the most-used social media networks, including Facebook and Twitter, have taken steps in recent years to label and moderate false information. But experts say those companies could be doing more, and are worried about apps like TikTok and WhatsApp that have exploded in popularity since the last election.
*“That would include voter myths or disinformation which could either cause the voter to miss the chance to participate because they believed incorrect information, or cause them to not participate at all because they don’t believe in the integrity of the election process,” Littlewood said.
Comment: Voter suppression. Election deniers. Misinformation. Stock narratives they’ve been pounding for months, that’s all the Democrats have. Meanwhile, just recently, we’ve learned that people in Arizona have been indicted for illegal ballot harvesting; Maricopa County in Arizona has systematically been hiring more Democrats than Republicans as poll watchers; and Pennsylvania has been counting undated mail-in ballots in violation of state law. That just scratches the surface of the very real problems with our elections all across the land. But the Democrats never talk about the problems, because they CAUSED them. All the Democrats do is pound their pathetic little narratives and hope you won’t see through their schemes. That may be good for riling up their base, but it doesn’t cut it for the rest of us, not even close. We won’t stop until the job is done and we have free and fair elections again.
Comment: Voter suppression. Election deniers. Misinformation. Stock narratives they’ve been pounding for months, that’s all the Democrats have. Meanwhile, just recently, we’ve learned that people in Arizona have been indicted for illegal ballot harvesting; Maricopa County in Arizona has systematically been hiring more Democrats than Republicans as poll watchers; and Pennsylvania has been counting undated mail-in ballots in violation of state law. That just scratches the surface of the very real problems with our elections all across the land. But the Democrats never talk about the problems, because they CAUSED them. All the Democrats do is pound their pathetic little narratives and hope you won’t see through their schemes. That may be good for riling up their base, but it doesn’t cut it for the rest of us, not even close. We won’t stop until the job is done and we have free and fair elections again.
October 16, 2022
Easy to Vote, Easy to Cheat - The Left Never Quits
It’s Back! - Independent State Legislature Theory
After a hiatus, a number of articles appeared last week fretting about state legislatures overseeing the electoral process. Here’s one:
Brennan Center
*The “independent state legislature theory” is a misreading of the Constitution, advanced in recent years by a small group of right-wing advocates, that would give state legislatures wide authority to gerrymander electoral maps and pass voter suppression laws.
*The Brennan Center is mobilizing to block this threat through a combination of litigation and communications projects designed to shore up the legal protections for fair elections and fair maps.
Comment: It’s not clear why this particular bee is back in the left-wing Brennan Center’s bonnet. Democrat redistricting maps were thrown out in Maryland and New York this year. As for ‘voter suppression’ laws, here’s the correct chronology: Democrat elections officials instated a number of ‘emergency’ measures like drop boxes and mail-in voting during the COVID pandemic, then moved to make them permanent, despite the pandemic being over, in order to facilitate election fraud (more examples here). When state legislatures sought to rectify the situation brought about by unelected bureaucrats on their own motion, Democrats objected, screaming ‘voter suppression’. The fact of the matter is state legislatures have a constitutional footing for directing the electoral process (Article I, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution) and unelected bureaucrats do not. Case closed.
Democrat Election Fraud Fever Dreams on the Michigan Ballot
Daily Caller
*There’s a surprise attack underway in the swing state of Michigan where a left-wing group, Promote the Vote, got a Democratic wish list of voting rules and procedures added to this November’s ballot as a constitutional amendment.
*With Michigan having a Democratic governor and a Republican state legislature, there’s been a standoff on election integrity reforms, and this is a way around the Republican legislature.
*Proposal 2 is a repeat of the Democratic playbook from the 2020 election which is to weaken voter ID laws, expand mail in ballot programs, increase drop boxes and allow outside groups to spend money on election systems. After the 2020 election, at least 24 states have reformed their election laws, but Michigan has been in a standoff with a split government.
*The real objective of Proposal 2 is to lock loose voting laws into the Constitution so that lawmakers cannot pass popular reforms that take the slack out of elections. One such proposal is Secure MI Vote, which would enact a true photo ID law and ban Zuckbucks. But lawmakers will be powerless to adopt those policies if Proposal 2 prevails.
Easy to Vote, Easy to Cheat - The Left Never Quits in Colorado
Center for Public Integrity
*Colorado has continued to improve access to voting in the past two years, but advocates are urging an end to the state’s disenfranchisement of people who’ve been convicted of felonies.
*In 2021 and 2022, Colorado lawmakers made it easier to vote if someone is temporarily homeless from a disaster, expanded multilingual ballot access and established an electronic voting option for people with disabilities.
*Colorado’s new online voting option is largely meant to provide additional options for voters who are blind or have limited vision. The system is the same used by Colorado military service members and permanent overseas residents.
*Hill said a goal of Colorado Common Cause, criminal justice reform organizations and other voting rights groups in the next year or two is legislative action or a ballot initiative to fully restore the voting rights of people serving prison sentences for felonies.
*In June, Democratic Gov. Jared Polis signed two election security bills into law. One, The Election Official Protection Act, increased criminal penalties for harassing and intimidating election workers.
*Polis also signed the The Colorado Election Security Act, which makes it a felony for election officials and workers to knowingly publish confidential information about voting systems.
*“We’re trying to keep our eyes on any extremist county clerks,” she said. “We’re tracking the voting experience to make sure they’re equal and uniform.”
Comment: Any one of these things might sound reasonable in isolation. But you put them all together and realize the Dems keep pushing for more after winning some things, quite a different picture emerges. The game is afoot and that is reason enough to oppose them on everything and make them bleed for every inch.
It Got Harder to Cheat in Texas - Boohoo!
Brennan Center
*Texas is a case in point. When the state legislature passed Senate Bill 1 in late 2021, election experts warned that the law would keep people from voting. It erected barriers to early voting and voting by mail and reduced access to polling places. It placed significant new burdens on voters with disabilities and banned 24-hour and drive-through voting. It empowered partisan poll watchers to create disruptions at voting places, and it did so at the expense of poll workers, who already suffered threats of violence after the 2020 election. The Brennan Center called S.B. 1 “one of the cruelest and most aggressive restrictive voting bills to become law.”
*A whopping 12 percent of mail ballots were rejected for failing to satisfy the requirements — a 12-fold increase in the rejection rate for mail-in ballots in 2020.
*The disastrous and unjustifiable S.B. 1 is one of several laws the Texas legislature passed under the influence of election denial and the delusion of a “stolen” presidential election. H.B 3920 states that the only disabilities that entitle a citizen to vote by mail are those that physically prevent a trip to the polls.
Comment: Of course the Dems don’t like it when the process gets tightened up and possibilities for fraud get removed.
More States Wise Up to Democrat Tricks
Brennan Center
*At least seven states enacted 10 laws that make voting more difficult — of these, 5 laws in five states are in place for the midterms.
*Since the beginning of 2021, lawmakers have passed at least 42 restrictive voting laws in 21 states. Among those laws, 33 contain at least one restrictive provision that is in effect for the midterms in 20 states.
Stay Tuned: Aggrieved Parties Contemplating Actions Against Fed-Led Censorship Consortium
Just the News
*A federal agency-backed censorship machine that affected thousands of web URLs and millions of social posts during the 2020 campaign put a focus on some members of Congress and candidates for federal office, raising concerns about the separation of powers and election meddling.
*Four House members, including Republican leader Kevin McCarthy of California and oft-censored Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, and one Senate candidate are named in the after-action report by the Election Integrity Partnership, set up "in consultation" with the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
*The consortium of four private entities, led by Stanford and University of Washington research centers, mass-reported alleged misinformation for 100 days before the election and about two weeks after, targeting Just the News among other news organizations. It claimed a success rate of 35% for content removal, labeling and "soft-blocking."
*this type of entanglement where government is communicating with oligarchs ... that makes the private sector a government actor," said Kline, who directs the Thomas More Society's Amistad Project.
*Greene told the "Just the News Not Noise" TV show she is considering suing for infringement of her free speech both as a candidate and congresswoman-elect and working with other lawmakers to launch an investigation that starts with evidence preservation letters this month.
*House Homeland Security Committee member Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) told the podcast that the Energy and Commerce Committee will be "extraordinarily busy in holding Big Tech accountable" if Republicans win back the chamber and Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) becomes chair.
*They will be looking at "where's the line drawn between a private company and a private enterprise, and the new public square, which these platforms have become," Cammack said. "People are going to see for the first time just how vast this entire operation of censorship" against conservative voices has been "and for how long."
Easy to Vote, Easy to Cheat - The Left Never Quits
It’s Back! - Independent State Legislature Theory
After a hiatus, a number of articles appeared last week fretting about state legislatures overseeing the electoral process. Here’s one:
Brennan Center
*The “independent state legislature theory” is a misreading of the Constitution, advanced in recent years by a small group of right-wing advocates, that would give state legislatures wide authority to gerrymander electoral maps and pass voter suppression laws.
*The Brennan Center is mobilizing to block this threat through a combination of litigation and communications projects designed to shore up the legal protections for fair elections and fair maps.
Comment: It’s not clear why this particular bee is back in the left-wing Brennan Center’s bonnet. Democrat redistricting maps were thrown out in Maryland and New York this year. As for ‘voter suppression’ laws, here’s the correct chronology: Democrat elections officials instated a number of ‘emergency’ measures like drop boxes and mail-in voting during the COVID pandemic, then moved to make them permanent, despite the pandemic being over, in order to facilitate election fraud (more examples here). When state legislatures sought to rectify the situation brought about by unelected bureaucrats on their own motion, Democrats objected, screaming ‘voter suppression’. The fact of the matter is state legislatures have a constitutional footing for directing the electoral process (Article I, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution) and unelected bureaucrats do not. Case closed.
Democrat Election Fraud Fever Dreams on the Michigan Ballot
Daily Caller
*There’s a surprise attack underway in the swing state of Michigan where a left-wing group, Promote the Vote, got a Democratic wish list of voting rules and procedures added to this November’s ballot as a constitutional amendment.
*With Michigan having a Democratic governor and a Republican state legislature, there’s been a standoff on election integrity reforms, and this is a way around the Republican legislature.
*Proposal 2 is a repeat of the Democratic playbook from the 2020 election which is to weaken voter ID laws, expand mail in ballot programs, increase drop boxes and allow outside groups to spend money on election systems. After the 2020 election, at least 24 states have reformed their election laws, but Michigan has been in a standoff with a split government.
*The real objective of Proposal 2 is to lock loose voting laws into the Constitution so that lawmakers cannot pass popular reforms that take the slack out of elections. One such proposal is Secure MI Vote, which would enact a true photo ID law and ban Zuckbucks. But lawmakers will be powerless to adopt those policies if Proposal 2 prevails.
Easy to Vote, Easy to Cheat - The Left Never Quits in Colorado
Center for Public Integrity
*Colorado has continued to improve access to voting in the past two years, but advocates are urging an end to the state’s disenfranchisement of people who’ve been convicted of felonies.
*In 2021 and 2022, Colorado lawmakers made it easier to vote if someone is temporarily homeless from a disaster, expanded multilingual ballot access and established an electronic voting option for people with disabilities.
*Colorado’s new online voting option is largely meant to provide additional options for voters who are blind or have limited vision. The system is the same used by Colorado military service members and permanent overseas residents.
*Hill said a goal of Colorado Common Cause, criminal justice reform organizations and other voting rights groups in the next year or two is legislative action or a ballot initiative to fully restore the voting rights of people serving prison sentences for felonies.
*In June, Democratic Gov. Jared Polis signed two election security bills into law. One, The Election Official Protection Act, increased criminal penalties for harassing and intimidating election workers.
*Polis also signed the The Colorado Election Security Act, which makes it a felony for election officials and workers to knowingly publish confidential information about voting systems.
*“We’re trying to keep our eyes on any extremist county clerks,” she said. “We’re tracking the voting experience to make sure they’re equal and uniform.”
Comment: Any one of these things might sound reasonable in isolation. But you put them all together and realize the Dems keep pushing for more after winning some things, quite a different picture emerges. The game is afoot and that is reason enough to oppose them on everything and make them bleed for every inch.
It Got Harder to Cheat in Texas - Boohoo!
Brennan Center
*Texas is a case in point. When the state legislature passed Senate Bill 1 in late 2021, election experts warned that the law would keep people from voting. It erected barriers to early voting and voting by mail and reduced access to polling places. It placed significant new burdens on voters with disabilities and banned 24-hour and drive-through voting. It empowered partisan poll watchers to create disruptions at voting places, and it did so at the expense of poll workers, who already suffered threats of violence after the 2020 election. The Brennan Center called S.B. 1 “one of the cruelest and most aggressive restrictive voting bills to become law.”
*A whopping 12 percent of mail ballots were rejected for failing to satisfy the requirements — a 12-fold increase in the rejection rate for mail-in ballots in 2020.
*The disastrous and unjustifiable S.B. 1 is one of several laws the Texas legislature passed under the influence of election denial and the delusion of a “stolen” presidential election. H.B 3920 states that the only disabilities that entitle a citizen to vote by mail are those that physically prevent a trip to the polls.
Comment: Of course the Dems don’t like it when the process gets tightened up and possibilities for fraud get removed.
More States Wise Up to Democrat Tricks
Brennan Center
*At least seven states enacted 10 laws that make voting more difficult — of these, 5 laws in five states are in place for the midterms.
*Since the beginning of 2021, lawmakers have passed at least 42 restrictive voting laws in 21 states. Among those laws, 33 contain at least one restrictive provision that is in effect for the midterms in 20 states.
Stay Tuned: Aggrieved Parties Contemplating Actions Against Fed-Led Censorship Consortium
Just the News
*A federal agency-backed censorship machine that affected thousands of web URLs and millions of social posts during the 2020 campaign put a focus on some members of Congress and candidates for federal office, raising concerns about the separation of powers and election meddling.
*Four House members, including Republican leader Kevin McCarthy of California and oft-censored Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, and one Senate candidate are named in the after-action report by the Election Integrity Partnership, set up "in consultation" with the Department of Homeland Security's Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).
*The consortium of four private entities, led by Stanford and University of Washington research centers, mass-reported alleged misinformation for 100 days before the election and about two weeks after, targeting Just the News among other news organizations. It claimed a success rate of 35% for content removal, labeling and "soft-blocking."
*this type of entanglement where government is communicating with oligarchs ... that makes the private sector a government actor," said Kline, who directs the Thomas More Society's Amistad Project.
*Greene told the "Just the News Not Noise" TV show she is considering suing for infringement of her free speech both as a candidate and congresswoman-elect and working with other lawmakers to launch an investigation that starts with evidence preservation letters this month.
*House Homeland Security Committee member Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) told the podcast that the Energy and Commerce Committee will be "extraordinarily busy in holding Big Tech accountable" if Republicans win back the chamber and Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) becomes chair.
*They will be looking at "where's the line drawn between a private company and a private enterprise, and the new public square, which these platforms have become," Cammack said. "People are going to see for the first time just how vast this entire operation of censorship" against conservative voices has been "and for how long."
October 9, 2022
How Democrats Game the Electoral System
With tax status abuse, control over election processes, and phony narratives, that’s how.
501c3 Abuse Fuels Dem Voter Registration Drives
FrontPageMag
*Federal, state and local governments, leftist foundations and nonprofits are distributing a vast fortune in funds aimed at voter engagement and registration. The vast majority of that money is directed at enhancing Democrat voter turnout by targeting demographics, young people, immigrants, minorities, and single women who are statistically more likely to vote for their party. Formally, voter registration and outreach is considered nonpartisan if it doesn’t endorse specific candidates, but the demographic targeting makes a mockery of the regulations and is aimed at boosting Democrat voter turnout in elections.
* Despite being an obvious Democrat voter turnout operation run by experienced Democrat campaign organizers, Civic Nation claims that it “is organized exclusively for charitable and educational purposes within the meaning of section 501(c)(3) of the International Revenue Code.” Donations to it are tax deductible. But if that’s a charity, so is the Democrat Party.
*the law, embedded in IRS regulations, bars a foundation from “conducting or paying the expenses of conducting a voter registration drive limited to the geographic area covered by the campaign”, but not a particular demographic group. However current IRS regulations state that C3s “are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign”. It further warns that, “voter education or registration activities with evidence of bias” that would “have the effect of favoring a candidate or group of candidates, will constitute prohibited participation or intervention.”
*The IRS has failed to enforce its own regulations.
If You Can’t Beat’em, Censor’em
Just the News
*Private consortium that flagged 2020 election 'misinformation' defends its work with feds
*A private consortium that played a major role in censoring social media content during the 2020 election has acknowledged anew it collaborated closely with two federal Cabinet agencies and state and local election officials on the project, but said most of its requests to Big Tech came from its own research.
*The Election Integrity Partnership issued a lengthy statement Wednesday after a series of reports by Just the News on the breadth of its efforts to censor purported misinformation, which impacted nearly 22 million tweets, 4,800 URLs, 20 news organizations, several lawmakers and candidates and two dozen influencers, with a 35% success rate for content removal, labeling or "soft-blocking."
*It denied the consortium ever attempted to do fact-checks or "decide what is or isn't 'misinformation'" as opposed to identifying attempted election interference and delegitimization of results. The Hunter Biden laptop story, for example, is not "in scope" for its project.
*It also noted that CISA's Countering Foreign Influence Task Force "aided in the reporting process" for the consortium "and in implementing resilience efforts to counter election misinformation."
*Though its list of "repeat spreaders" of misinformation is all conservative influencers, including Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Jack Posobiec and Charlie Kirk, the consortium said it did not intend to target conservatives.
*Alluding to members of Congress who have threatened legislation and even litigation in response to the consortium's work, the consortium said, "Several of our leaders have testified repeatedly on these topics, and we would be happy to return to Congress to discuss our work."
Comment: Under the state actor legal theory, once social media platforms make themselves an arm of the government, they are no longer private companies that can do what they want. So, yes, this is censorship.
Fraud Creeps in on Little Cat Feet When Voters’ Identities Are Not Verified
Epoch Times
*Wisconsin state Assemblywoman Janel Brandtjen, a Republican, worries that not enough has been done to prevent the upcoming midterm election from becoming a replay of 2020.
*“Going into the midterms, a person can still register, get a ballot, and vote before his or her identity and address are verified with the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, as required by law,” Brandtjen told The Epoch Times. “I saw this going on in the August primary. Nothing has changed since 2020. There is still no instantaneous identity check for the thousands of people utilizing Wisconsin’s same-day registration law.
*The audit discovered that the identity and address information of more than 46,000 same-day voting registrants didn’t match the information in the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (DOT) database.
*Brandtjen said some of these may be explainable by things such as spelling errors, but the sheer number discovered is cause for concern.
*“It also doesn’t change the fact that the errors that were caught were found after the person voted,” she said.
All the Democrats’ Phony Narratives Condensed in One Place - Just Add Water
The Guardian
Election deniers, violent Republicans, threats to democracy - they’re all here:
*In the first of a new series, we look at how November’s midterm elections could be an inflection point as election deniers seek to take control of the vote counting process
*One by one, a band of activists took to the podium to argue that Nye county should switch from electronic ballots to paper ones in forthcoming elections. They were led by Jim Marchant, a Las Vegas businessman who lost a 2020 House race but refused to concede, alleging fraud. He argued that the county couldn’t trust its electronic election equipment and that it should switch to a system in which it only used paper ballots and counted those ballots by hand.
*The movement threatens American elections from the top down and the bottom up at the same time. At the top, there is a push to install statewide officials who would have no reservations about making baseless claims of fraud and overturning an election result. From the bottom, it seeks to harass, threaten and ultimately remove non-partisan local election officials and make it harder for them to administer elections. If there is an overarching strategy to the movement – and it’s not clear there is one – it seems to be to cause as much chaos, as much confusion, and as much uncertainty, as possible.
*A recent analysis by FiveThirtyEight estimated that 60% of Americans will have election deniers on the ballot in November.
*The threat posed by individuals prepared to throw out legitimate election results is especially pronounced in the handful of key battleground states that were decisive in 2020.
*At that point, the crisis would switch to Congress itself. Here too the stakes couldn’t be higher in November.
*Should the Republicans take control of the House of Representatives, elevating Kevin McCarthy, an avid backer of Trump’s stolen election lie, to the role of speaker, they would be in a strong position to accept the electors sent to Congress fraudulently by election deniers in the states.
*Potentially the only person left who could stave off democratic disaster would be Kamala Harris, the vice-president, who under the US constitution will preside over certification just as Mike Pence did in 2020. But should she attempt to block the Republicans from certifying Trump as president on the back of fraudulent state actions, she could trigger a confrontation between the executive branch in the form of the vice-president and the legislative branch in Congress.
Hand Counts Are No Darn Good (That’s Why France Does Them)
NPR
*According to many conspiracy theorists, the 2020 election was stolen by an algorithm, therefore if you take computers out of the voting process you can further secure your election.
*Hand-counting ballots is a voting "solution" that, to those without familiarity with elections, may sound nice. The problem is that counting tactic has actually been found to be significantly less accurate, more expensive and more time-consuming than using tabulation equipment.
*Moving back toward hand-counting ballots would also significantly increase costs for local election offices that are perennially under-resourced, says Jennifer Morrell, an elections consultant and former local voting administrator.
*The staff size at almost every election office across the country would need to exponentially increase, and even then, hand-counting dozens of races on tens of millions of ballots would probably take weeks or months.
Comment: This article doesn’t mention the facts ballots are hand-counted in France and final results only take a day. Gee, I wonder why. The article quotes Jennifer Morrell, who is not a credible source. She was seen partying with Dominion’s Eric Coomer and Colorado Dems and election officials. She has ties to multiple left-wing groups. This publication warned about her a year ago.
Best Answer to ‘Are You an Election Denier?’
Western Journal
*“Do you believe the 2020 election was free, fair and untainted, and Joe Biden is the duly elected president of the United States?” the moderator asked.
* “Sir, Joe Biden is the president of the United States,” (Virginia GOP congressional candidate Hung) Cao responded. “If you don’t believe me, go to your gas pumps, or go to your grocery stores, and that’ll tell you who is.”
How Democrats Game the Electoral System
With tax status abuse, control over election processes, and phony narratives, that’s how.
501c3 Abuse Fuels Dem Voter Registration Drives
FrontPageMag
*Federal, state and local governments, leftist foundations and nonprofits are distributing a vast fortune in funds aimed at voter engagement and registration. The vast majority of that money is directed at enhancing Democrat voter turnout by targeting demographics, young people, immigrants, minorities, and single women who are statistically more likely to vote for their party. Formally, voter registration and outreach is considered nonpartisan if it doesn’t endorse specific candidates, but the demographic targeting makes a mockery of the regulations and is aimed at boosting Democrat voter turnout in elections.
* Despite being an obvious Democrat voter turnout operation run by experienced Democrat campaign organizers, Civic Nation claims that it “is organized exclusively for charitable and educational purposes within the meaning of section 501(c)(3) of the International Revenue Code.” Donations to it are tax deductible. But if that’s a charity, so is the Democrat Party.
*the law, embedded in IRS regulations, bars a foundation from “conducting or paying the expenses of conducting a voter registration drive limited to the geographic area covered by the campaign”, but not a particular demographic group. However current IRS regulations state that C3s “are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign”. It further warns that, “voter education or registration activities with evidence of bias” that would “have the effect of favoring a candidate or group of candidates, will constitute prohibited participation or intervention.”
*The IRS has failed to enforce its own regulations.
If You Can’t Beat’em, Censor’em
Just the News
*Private consortium that flagged 2020 election 'misinformation' defends its work with feds
*A private consortium that played a major role in censoring social media content during the 2020 election has acknowledged anew it collaborated closely with two federal Cabinet agencies and state and local election officials on the project, but said most of its requests to Big Tech came from its own research.
*The Election Integrity Partnership issued a lengthy statement Wednesday after a series of reports by Just the News on the breadth of its efforts to censor purported misinformation, which impacted nearly 22 million tweets, 4,800 URLs, 20 news organizations, several lawmakers and candidates and two dozen influencers, with a 35% success rate for content removal, labeling or "soft-blocking."
*It denied the consortium ever attempted to do fact-checks or "decide what is or isn't 'misinformation'" as opposed to identifying attempted election interference and delegitimization of results. The Hunter Biden laptop story, for example, is not "in scope" for its project.
*It also noted that CISA's Countering Foreign Influence Task Force "aided in the reporting process" for the consortium "and in implementing resilience efforts to counter election misinformation."
*Though its list of "repeat spreaders" of misinformation is all conservative influencers, including Sean Hannity, Mark Levin, Jack Posobiec and Charlie Kirk, the consortium said it did not intend to target conservatives.
*Alluding to members of Congress who have threatened legislation and even litigation in response to the consortium's work, the consortium said, "Several of our leaders have testified repeatedly on these topics, and we would be happy to return to Congress to discuss our work."
Comment: Under the state actor legal theory, once social media platforms make themselves an arm of the government, they are no longer private companies that can do what they want. So, yes, this is censorship.
Fraud Creeps in on Little Cat Feet When Voters’ Identities Are Not Verified
Epoch Times
*Wisconsin state Assemblywoman Janel Brandtjen, a Republican, worries that not enough has been done to prevent the upcoming midterm election from becoming a replay of 2020.
*“Going into the midterms, a person can still register, get a ballot, and vote before his or her identity and address are verified with the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, as required by law,” Brandtjen told The Epoch Times. “I saw this going on in the August primary. Nothing has changed since 2020. There is still no instantaneous identity check for the thousands of people utilizing Wisconsin’s same-day registration law.
*The audit discovered that the identity and address information of more than 46,000 same-day voting registrants didn’t match the information in the Wisconsin Department of Transportation (DOT) database.
*Brandtjen said some of these may be explainable by things such as spelling errors, but the sheer number discovered is cause for concern.
*“It also doesn’t change the fact that the errors that were caught were found after the person voted,” she said.
All the Democrats’ Phony Narratives Condensed in One Place - Just Add Water
The Guardian
Election deniers, violent Republicans, threats to democracy - they’re all here:
*In the first of a new series, we look at how November’s midterm elections could be an inflection point as election deniers seek to take control of the vote counting process
*One by one, a band of activists took to the podium to argue that Nye county should switch from electronic ballots to paper ones in forthcoming elections. They were led by Jim Marchant, a Las Vegas businessman who lost a 2020 House race but refused to concede, alleging fraud. He argued that the county couldn’t trust its electronic election equipment and that it should switch to a system in which it only used paper ballots and counted those ballots by hand.
*The movement threatens American elections from the top down and the bottom up at the same time. At the top, there is a push to install statewide officials who would have no reservations about making baseless claims of fraud and overturning an election result. From the bottom, it seeks to harass, threaten and ultimately remove non-partisan local election officials and make it harder for them to administer elections. If there is an overarching strategy to the movement – and it’s not clear there is one – it seems to be to cause as much chaos, as much confusion, and as much uncertainty, as possible.
*A recent analysis by FiveThirtyEight estimated that 60% of Americans will have election deniers on the ballot in November.
*The threat posed by individuals prepared to throw out legitimate election results is especially pronounced in the handful of key battleground states that were decisive in 2020.
*At that point, the crisis would switch to Congress itself. Here too the stakes couldn’t be higher in November.
*Should the Republicans take control of the House of Representatives, elevating Kevin McCarthy, an avid backer of Trump’s stolen election lie, to the role of speaker, they would be in a strong position to accept the electors sent to Congress fraudulently by election deniers in the states.
*Potentially the only person left who could stave off democratic disaster would be Kamala Harris, the vice-president, who under the US constitution will preside over certification just as Mike Pence did in 2020. But should she attempt to block the Republicans from certifying Trump as president on the back of fraudulent state actions, she could trigger a confrontation between the executive branch in the form of the vice-president and the legislative branch in Congress.
Hand Counts Are No Darn Good (That’s Why France Does Them)
NPR
*According to many conspiracy theorists, the 2020 election was stolen by an algorithm, therefore if you take computers out of the voting process you can further secure your election.
*Hand-counting ballots is a voting "solution" that, to those without familiarity with elections, may sound nice. The problem is that counting tactic has actually been found to be significantly less accurate, more expensive and more time-consuming than using tabulation equipment.
*Moving back toward hand-counting ballots would also significantly increase costs for local election offices that are perennially under-resourced, says Jennifer Morrell, an elections consultant and former local voting administrator.
*The staff size at almost every election office across the country would need to exponentially increase, and even then, hand-counting dozens of races on tens of millions of ballots would probably take weeks or months.
Comment: This article doesn’t mention the facts ballots are hand-counted in France and final results only take a day. Gee, I wonder why. The article quotes Jennifer Morrell, who is not a credible source. She was seen partying with Dominion’s Eric Coomer and Colorado Dems and election officials. She has ties to multiple left-wing groups. This publication warned about her a year ago.
Best Answer to ‘Are You an Election Denier?’
Western Journal
*“Do you believe the 2020 election was free, fair and untainted, and Joe Biden is the duly elected president of the United States?” the moderator asked.
* “Sir, Joe Biden is the president of the United States,” (Virginia GOP congressional candidate Hung) Cao responded. “If you don’t believe me, go to your gas pumps, or go to your grocery stores, and that’ll tell you who is.”
October 2, 2022
When the Popular Facilitates Fraud
Several stories appeared last week about how popular mail-in voting and drop boxes have become. We look at some of those stories and then some of the reasons not to bow down at the altar of popularity:
“Debate Over: Vote by Mail Boosts Turnout”
National Vote at Home Institute
*This year, vote-by-mail policies affected participation not just in New York and Hawaii but in primaries around the country. Those turnout results, as well as new research on vote by mail’s impact on the 2020 general election, provide strong evidence that mailing ballots to voters boosts participation—and offers subtle clues of what might happen in this November’s midterms.
*Since turnout in primary elections is typically low, it’s not too surprising that making it easier for voters to cast ballots by mail could yield double-digit increases in participation.
*It is increasingly clear that vote by mail boosts election participation and that whichever party does the most to convince its voters to utilize mail ballots will have an edge in November.
“The Newest Democratic Fight to Make Vote by Mail Easier”
Washington Monthly
*Nearly 24 years ago, Oregon solved the problem of repeating absentee sign-ups by making vote by mail the default for the entire state—every registered voter is mailed a ballot weeks before the election, which they can fill out at home and return either through the mail, in person at a polling place, or in a drop box. Since then, seven more states—Washington, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Vermont, and Hawaii—have gone the full “vote at home” route. Prior to 2020, this was not a partisan issue: Utah, for instance, is an overwhelmingly red state, whereas Hawaii is overwhelmingly blue. Recent research, meanwhile, confirms that voter turnout goes up the most in full vote-at-home states, as Paul Glastris noted recently in the Washington Monthly.
*The popularity of voting by mail generally, and single sign-up in particular, is clear from how many voters choose to take advantage of it when they’re afforded the opportunity. And once voters grow used to a so-called entitlement—Obamacare, for example, or the constitutional right to an abortion—they are loath to give it up. Once again, Republicans are putting themselves in the unpopular position of being the party that takes rights away.
“Drop box popularity holds strong despite attacks and misinformation”
National Vote at Home Institute
*Debunked claims of “mules” stuffing ballot drop boxes haven’t seemed to slow the use of drop boxes in largely rural Yavapai County, a heavily Republican area north of Phoenix. The boxes have long been extraordinarily popular with voters there. And the county has been responsive to some voters’ interest in increased security of the boxes themselves.
*Why are they popular? Drop boxes appeared in many new places during the 2020 election, spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic and voters’ wariness of voting in person But Arizona, where no-excuse mail voting has been in place for three decades, has long used them.
*Voters use drop boxes for convenience — driving up and dropping in a ballot is typically quick and easy, especially if they’re placed in highly trafficked areas.
Comments: Let’s just cut to the bottom line: the National Vote at Home Institute is part of a Democrat voter registration effort, so of course it is in favor of loosening safeguards in elections procedures. Of course it tries to ‘flood the zone’ with loose ballots that can be cast fraudulently. If the use of drop boxes is always on the up and up, then why do the mules wear gloves and stuff big batches of ballots into drop boxes in the middle of the night? And just because something is popular doesn’t mean it’s not facilitating fraud. The Carter-Baker commission recognized the potential for fraud in mail-in balloting years ago. Those fears were realized in the 2020 election when mail-in ballots were lost by the thousands - what happened to them? Before you can conclude mail-in voting and drop boxes ‘boost turnout’ you have to calculate a discount factor for fraud, and nobody knows what how big that is.
Big Tech Presumes To Be Arbiter of Truth Again in Upcoming Election
Columbia Journalism Review
*IN AUGUST, Twitter, Google, TikTok, and Meta, the parent company of Facebook, released statements about how they intended to handle election-related misinformation on their platforms in advance. For the most part, it seemed they weren’t planning to change much. Now, with the November 8 midterms drawing closer, Change the Terms, a coalition of about sixty civil rights organizations, says the social platforms have not done nearly enough to stop continued misinformation about “the Big Lie”—that is, the unfounded claim that the 2020 election was somehow fraudulent.
Just Because They’re Election Deniers Doesn’t Mean They’re Not Right about Needed Reforms
Politifact
*Election deniers are running for statewide offices across the nation, including for secretary of state and governor. If they win in November, they will have some powers of oversight for future elections.
*Their platforms include ending and restricting voting by mail....
*Deniers are running under platforms rooted in the falsehood that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump.
Comment: So what? If their reforms improve election integrity in the future, their beliefs about the 2020 election are irrelevant.
New Narrative Blows Up ‘Republican Violence’ Narrative - Oops
AP
*Outraged by false allegations of fraud against a Georgia elections employee in 2020, Amanda Rouser made a vow as she listened to the woman testify before Congress in June about the racist threats and harassment she faced.
* ... the false claims about the 2020 presidential contest by the former president and his supporters are spurring new interest in working the polls in Georgia and elsewhere for the upcoming midterm elections, according to interviews with election officials, experts and prospective poll workers.
*Like Rouser, some aim to shore up a critical part of their state’s election system amid the lies and misinformation about voting and ballot-counting.
Comments: This completely blows up the previous narrative ‘election workers are being scared away by threats of violence in future elections by Republicans’.
When the Popular Facilitates Fraud
Several stories appeared last week about how popular mail-in voting and drop boxes have become. We look at some of those stories and then some of the reasons not to bow down at the altar of popularity:
“Debate Over: Vote by Mail Boosts Turnout”
National Vote at Home Institute
*This year, vote-by-mail policies affected participation not just in New York and Hawaii but in primaries around the country. Those turnout results, as well as new research on vote by mail’s impact on the 2020 general election, provide strong evidence that mailing ballots to voters boosts participation—and offers subtle clues of what might happen in this November’s midterms.
*Since turnout in primary elections is typically low, it’s not too surprising that making it easier for voters to cast ballots by mail could yield double-digit increases in participation.
*It is increasingly clear that vote by mail boosts election participation and that whichever party does the most to convince its voters to utilize mail ballots will have an edge in November.
“The Newest Democratic Fight to Make Vote by Mail Easier”
Washington Monthly
*Nearly 24 years ago, Oregon solved the problem of repeating absentee sign-ups by making vote by mail the default for the entire state—every registered voter is mailed a ballot weeks before the election, which they can fill out at home and return either through the mail, in person at a polling place, or in a drop box. Since then, seven more states—Washington, California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Vermont, and Hawaii—have gone the full “vote at home” route. Prior to 2020, this was not a partisan issue: Utah, for instance, is an overwhelmingly red state, whereas Hawaii is overwhelmingly blue. Recent research, meanwhile, confirms that voter turnout goes up the most in full vote-at-home states, as Paul Glastris noted recently in the Washington Monthly.
*The popularity of voting by mail generally, and single sign-up in particular, is clear from how many voters choose to take advantage of it when they’re afforded the opportunity. And once voters grow used to a so-called entitlement—Obamacare, for example, or the constitutional right to an abortion—they are loath to give it up. Once again, Republicans are putting themselves in the unpopular position of being the party that takes rights away.
“Drop box popularity holds strong despite attacks and misinformation”
National Vote at Home Institute
*Debunked claims of “mules” stuffing ballot drop boxes haven’t seemed to slow the use of drop boxes in largely rural Yavapai County, a heavily Republican area north of Phoenix. The boxes have long been extraordinarily popular with voters there. And the county has been responsive to some voters’ interest in increased security of the boxes themselves.
*Why are they popular? Drop boxes appeared in many new places during the 2020 election, spurred by the COVID-19 pandemic and voters’ wariness of voting in person But Arizona, where no-excuse mail voting has been in place for three decades, has long used them.
*Voters use drop boxes for convenience — driving up and dropping in a ballot is typically quick and easy, especially if they’re placed in highly trafficked areas.
Comments: Let’s just cut to the bottom line: the National Vote at Home Institute is part of a Democrat voter registration effort, so of course it is in favor of loosening safeguards in elections procedures. Of course it tries to ‘flood the zone’ with loose ballots that can be cast fraudulently. If the use of drop boxes is always on the up and up, then why do the mules wear gloves and stuff big batches of ballots into drop boxes in the middle of the night? And just because something is popular doesn’t mean it’s not facilitating fraud. The Carter-Baker commission recognized the potential for fraud in mail-in balloting years ago. Those fears were realized in the 2020 election when mail-in ballots were lost by the thousands - what happened to them? Before you can conclude mail-in voting and drop boxes ‘boost turnout’ you have to calculate a discount factor for fraud, and nobody knows what how big that is.
Big Tech Presumes To Be Arbiter of Truth Again in Upcoming Election
Columbia Journalism Review
*IN AUGUST, Twitter, Google, TikTok, and Meta, the parent company of Facebook, released statements about how they intended to handle election-related misinformation on their platforms in advance. For the most part, it seemed they weren’t planning to change much. Now, with the November 8 midterms drawing closer, Change the Terms, a coalition of about sixty civil rights organizations, says the social platforms have not done nearly enough to stop continued misinformation about “the Big Lie”—that is, the unfounded claim that the 2020 election was somehow fraudulent.
- “A new interactive tool by the Brennan Center and the Alliance for Securing Democracy compiles election- and voting-related social media posts by candidates, news outlets, and other prominent messengers. With the midterms fast approaching, this tool will allow users to keep track of emerging narratives around key topics such as election denial and the spread of misinformation.”
- Facebook’s playbook for Midterms rehearsed in Italy - ‘fighting misinformation’ and collaborating with authorities (translation: in America, we will help Biden and the Democrats every way we can)
Just Because They’re Election Deniers Doesn’t Mean They’re Not Right about Needed Reforms
Politifact
*Election deniers are running for statewide offices across the nation, including for secretary of state and governor. If they win in November, they will have some powers of oversight for future elections.
*Their platforms include ending and restricting voting by mail....
*Deniers are running under platforms rooted in the falsehood that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump.
Comment: So what? If their reforms improve election integrity in the future, their beliefs about the 2020 election are irrelevant.
New Narrative Blows Up ‘Republican Violence’ Narrative - Oops
AP
*Outraged by false allegations of fraud against a Georgia elections employee in 2020, Amanda Rouser made a vow as she listened to the woman testify before Congress in June about the racist threats and harassment she faced.
* ... the false claims about the 2020 presidential contest by the former president and his supporters are spurring new interest in working the polls in Georgia and elsewhere for the upcoming midterm elections, according to interviews with election officials, experts and prospective poll workers.
*Like Rouser, some aim to shore up a critical part of their state’s election system amid the lies and misinformation about voting and ballot-counting.
Comments: This completely blows up the previous narrative ‘election workers are being scared away by threats of violence in future elections by Republicans’.
September 25, 2022
Democrats’ New Bogeymen: ‘Far-Right’ Constitutional Sheriffs
Salon
*The Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA) supports the far-right fringe belief that under the U.S. Constitution county sheriffs have extensive power that supersedes all other federal, state or local authorities.
*County sheriffs in at least three states have launched their own supposed investigations of election fraud, fueled by the right-wing conspiracy theories in circulation since the 2020 election. In Michigan, Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf has been under state investigation for allegedly tampering with voting machines. Last year, Leaf seized a Dominion voting tabulator from Irving Township and allegedly "tore it apart," later returning it with a broken security seal, the county clerk told News 8.
Comment: No, the sheriffs are just doing their job.
True to Form, Democrats Resist Efforts to Clean the Voter Rolls
BNN Bloomberg
*A series of last-minute challenges to the eligibility of tens of thousands of mostly Democratic voters by acolytes of Donald Trump risk violating federal law and threaten to complicate vote counting in US midterm elections in key states like Georgia.
*As of late August, more than 65,000 voter registrations have been challenged in several Georgia counties, including its most Democratic ones -- far more than the 11,000-vote margin President Joe Biden won there in 2020.
*Under the rules set by the 1993 federal law, local elections officials typically clean up voter rolls starting in the January after an election year to avoid mistakenly canceling a valid registration just before voting begins.
*In Georgia, the process can take as long as nine years, as voters are only marked inactive after they have failed to vote in two consecutive elections and don’t respond to a postcard sent by elections officials, and then only canceled if they are not responsive for another four years.
*Sean Morales-Doyle, acting director of the voting rights program at the Brennan Center, said the mandatory 90-day freeze protects the rights of voters to fix any mistakes before Election Day. He said the VoterGA and other challenges are based on unreliable data. The Brennan Center and the Campaign Legal Center have warned the counties not to remove voters this close to Election Day.
Democrats Want Federal Government to Put Its Thumb on the Scale for Them
Demos
*Today is National Voter Registration Day. This year, this important day comes in the midst of extreme efforts to undermine our democracy in states across the country. These anti-democratic efforts—led by opponents of a multiracial, inclusive democracy and economy—are intentionally designed to diminish the power of Black and brown voters, low-income voters, and others who have long been the targets of discrimination and exclusion. Organizers and activists are fighting to counter those efforts, including by registering thousands of voters during National Voter Registration Day and Month.
*That’s why we need our government to take urgent action to protect and promote the fundamental right to vote. As President Biden himself said in his March 2021 Executive Order on Promoting Access to Voting (EO), “It is the responsibility of the Federal Government to expand access to, and education about, voter registration and election information, and to combat misinformation, in order to enable all eligible Americans to participate in our democracy.”
*We’ve written about the opportunity created by this EO, promising early steps from agencies, and the significant potential that remains untapped. So, this National Voter Registration Day, we’ve invited our colleagues and partners to share why swift follow-through on the EO is so important to them, and what meaningful, timely action from the federal agencies can mean for their communities and for our democracy.
Jury Still Out on Democrats’ Lawfare Claims
NPR
*Konnech, a small Michigan company that makes election logistics software, says a "smear campaign" whipped up by the controversial group True the Vote has led to death threats and forced the company's CEO to leave home in fear for his and his family's lives. The company believes a driving force behind the threats is xenophobia; Konnech's CEO immigrated to the U.S. from China in the 1980s and became an American citizen in 1997.
*Konnech, which makes scheduling software for poll workers, joined a growing number of election officials and companies that have used defamation law to try to fight back against election-related conspiracies.
*Dominion Voting Systems, as well as another election technology company, Smartmatic, have filed multiple lawsuits against media outlets and prominent Trump-world figures that spread allegedly defamatory claims about them in the 2020 election. Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Wandrea Moss, the latter of whom testified in front of the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, have also filed lawsuits alleging that they were defamed by election conspiracy theories and subjected to "vitriol, threats, and harassment."
*In an unusual move, a federal judge agreed to issue a temporary restraining order against True the Vote, which requires the group to turn over "all property and data obtained from Konnech's protected computers," and blocks True the Vote from "using, disclosing, or exploiting the property and data downloaded from Konnech's protected computers."
Shorts
Democrats’ New Bogeymen: ‘Far-Right’ Constitutional Sheriffs
Salon
*The Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association (CSPOA) supports the far-right fringe belief that under the U.S. Constitution county sheriffs have extensive power that supersedes all other federal, state or local authorities.
*County sheriffs in at least three states have launched their own supposed investigations of election fraud, fueled by the right-wing conspiracy theories in circulation since the 2020 election. In Michigan, Barry County Sheriff Dar Leaf has been under state investigation for allegedly tampering with voting machines. Last year, Leaf seized a Dominion voting tabulator from Irving Township and allegedly "tore it apart," later returning it with a broken security seal, the county clerk told News 8.
Comment: No, the sheriffs are just doing their job.
True to Form, Democrats Resist Efforts to Clean the Voter Rolls
BNN Bloomberg
*A series of last-minute challenges to the eligibility of tens of thousands of mostly Democratic voters by acolytes of Donald Trump risk violating federal law and threaten to complicate vote counting in US midterm elections in key states like Georgia.
*As of late August, more than 65,000 voter registrations have been challenged in several Georgia counties, including its most Democratic ones -- far more than the 11,000-vote margin President Joe Biden won there in 2020.
*Under the rules set by the 1993 federal law, local elections officials typically clean up voter rolls starting in the January after an election year to avoid mistakenly canceling a valid registration just before voting begins.
*In Georgia, the process can take as long as nine years, as voters are only marked inactive after they have failed to vote in two consecutive elections and don’t respond to a postcard sent by elections officials, and then only canceled if they are not responsive for another four years.
*Sean Morales-Doyle, acting director of the voting rights program at the Brennan Center, said the mandatory 90-day freeze protects the rights of voters to fix any mistakes before Election Day. He said the VoterGA and other challenges are based on unreliable data. The Brennan Center and the Campaign Legal Center have warned the counties not to remove voters this close to Election Day.
Democrats Want Federal Government to Put Its Thumb on the Scale for Them
Demos
*Today is National Voter Registration Day. This year, this important day comes in the midst of extreme efforts to undermine our democracy in states across the country. These anti-democratic efforts—led by opponents of a multiracial, inclusive democracy and economy—are intentionally designed to diminish the power of Black and brown voters, low-income voters, and others who have long been the targets of discrimination and exclusion. Organizers and activists are fighting to counter those efforts, including by registering thousands of voters during National Voter Registration Day and Month.
*That’s why we need our government to take urgent action to protect and promote the fundamental right to vote. As President Biden himself said in his March 2021 Executive Order on Promoting Access to Voting (EO), “It is the responsibility of the Federal Government to expand access to, and education about, voter registration and election information, and to combat misinformation, in order to enable all eligible Americans to participate in our democracy.”
*We’ve written about the opportunity created by this EO, promising early steps from agencies, and the significant potential that remains untapped. So, this National Voter Registration Day, we’ve invited our colleagues and partners to share why swift follow-through on the EO is so important to them, and what meaningful, timely action from the federal agencies can mean for their communities and for our democracy.
Jury Still Out on Democrats’ Lawfare Claims
NPR
*Konnech, a small Michigan company that makes election logistics software, says a "smear campaign" whipped up by the controversial group True the Vote has led to death threats and forced the company's CEO to leave home in fear for his and his family's lives. The company believes a driving force behind the threats is xenophobia; Konnech's CEO immigrated to the U.S. from China in the 1980s and became an American citizen in 1997.
*Konnech, which makes scheduling software for poll workers, joined a growing number of election officials and companies that have used defamation law to try to fight back against election-related conspiracies.
*Dominion Voting Systems, as well as another election technology company, Smartmatic, have filed multiple lawsuits against media outlets and prominent Trump-world figures that spread allegedly defamatory claims about them in the 2020 election. Georgia election workers Ruby Freeman and Wandrea Moss, the latter of whom testified in front of the congressional committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, have also filed lawsuits alleging that they were defamed by election conspiracy theories and subjected to "vitriol, threats, and harassment."
*In an unusual move, a federal judge agreed to issue a temporary restraining order against True the Vote, which requires the group to turn over "all property and data obtained from Konnech's protected computers," and blocks True the Vote from "using, disclosing, or exploiting the property and data downloaded from Konnech's protected computers."
Shorts
- A conservative files complaint with IRS to remove tax exemptions from three ‘Zuckerbucks’ entities
- Milwaukee seeking new Democrat-aligned private money to get out the vote in the elections
- Big Tech poised to censor election news and information again this time
September 18, 2022
The Chimera of Republican Election Violence
Over the Top Dems Say Violent Republicans Will Disrupt the Midterm Elections
Salon
*Election officials across the country are concerned with potential violence and other disruptions compromising this November's midterm elections.
*For an elected state official to embrace that narrative, Gutierrez said, "really perpetuates this feeling that the people running our elections are doing something wrong, or trying to rig the elections. Just naturally, that's going to create an environment where you're asking for some kind of violence to happen."
Election Officials Need Help from Dem Experts to Fend Off Lions, Tigers, and Bears (Oh My!)
CEIR
*The Election Official Legal Defense Network (EOLDN) is launching a new program today, designed to give communications assistance to election officials, many of whom are facing unprecedented levels of abuse, attacks, and threats.
*To request assistance, election officials should fill out a short request form on https://eoldn.org. A staff member will review the request, and then will connect the official with a communications firm for assistance, at no cost to the official or their office.
*The Election Official Legal Defense Network is a project of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Center for Election Innovation & Research. EOLDN connects licensed, qualified, pro bono attorneys with election administrators who need advice or assistance in the face of threatened prosecutions or physical threats.
Comment: I’ll go out on a limb here and predict there will be far more Dem lawyers involved in the activity than there will be ‘violent Republicans’.
Left-Funded Nonprofit Dispenses Advice on How to Scrounge Up More Democrat Votes
Center for Public Integrity
*Americans detained before trials are allowed to vote, a status affirmed by a 1974 Supreme Court case. As a matter of law, pretrial detainees are presumed innocent and retain the voting rights they had before being charged with a crime.
*The lack of government attention to jail voting has persisted even as the number of pretrial detainees in the United States has more than tripled since the 1970s.
The Chimera of Republican Election Violence
Over the Top Dems Say Violent Republicans Will Disrupt the Midterm Elections
Salon
*Election officials across the country are concerned with potential violence and other disruptions compromising this November's midterm elections.
*For an elected state official to embrace that narrative, Gutierrez said, "really perpetuates this feeling that the people running our elections are doing something wrong, or trying to rig the elections. Just naturally, that's going to create an environment where you're asking for some kind of violence to happen."
- Here’s what might really happen: Democrats might torch Democrat headquarters or election offices in false flag operations to blame Republicans, stop the November elections, and create chaos. (Frank Gaffney’s ‘Securing America’ - 9/15/22). So, if you see reports in the news about such torchings and how Republicans must be responsible, don’t take those reports at face value.
Election Officials Need Help from Dem Experts to Fend Off Lions, Tigers, and Bears (Oh My!)
CEIR
*The Election Official Legal Defense Network (EOLDN) is launching a new program today, designed to give communications assistance to election officials, many of whom are facing unprecedented levels of abuse, attacks, and threats.
*To request assistance, election officials should fill out a short request form on https://eoldn.org. A staff member will review the request, and then will connect the official with a communications firm for assistance, at no cost to the official or their office.
*The Election Official Legal Defense Network is a project of the nonpartisan, nonprofit Center for Election Innovation & Research. EOLDN connects licensed, qualified, pro bono attorneys with election administrators who need advice or assistance in the face of threatened prosecutions or physical threats.
Comment: I’ll go out on a limb here and predict there will be far more Dem lawyers involved in the activity than there will be ‘violent Republicans’.
Left-Funded Nonprofit Dispenses Advice on How to Scrounge Up More Democrat Votes
Center for Public Integrity
*Americans detained before trials are allowed to vote, a status affirmed by a 1974 Supreme Court case. As a matter of law, pretrial detainees are presumed innocent and retain the voting rights they had before being charged with a crime.
*The lack of government attention to jail voting has persisted even as the number of pretrial detainees in the United States has more than tripled since the 1970s.
September 11, 2022
We Remember
Tall Tales from Democrat Fails
Dems Back to ‘There Is No Voter Fraud’
Brennan Center
*Election police squads were pointless from the beginning. Voter fraud is extremely rare, and there is no reason whatsoever to believe that that miniscule number of cases have any partisan lean. Voter fraud didn’t decide the 2020 election, and it won’t decide the 2024 election.
Comment: There are relatively few cases because states won’t investigate or prosecute them. South Carolina hasn’t had a voter fraud prosecution in 18 years. That doesn’t mean there is no voter fraud in South Carolina, or elsewhere, for that matter. Just because the Dems ridicule the Florida unit now doesn’t mean there won’t be a lot of voter fraud attempted in Florida in the future or that the unit is unneeded. Why is it Democrats try to discredit every attempt at election integrity? What game are they playing?
There Is No Voter Fraud, But Too Many People Are Being Arrested for Voter Fraud
The Guardian
*Flanked by uniformed law enforcement officials, DeSantis announced the state was prosecuting 19 people, including Smith, for voter fraud. All of them had been previously convicted of murder or a sexual offense, and had voted in the 2020 election.
*DeSantis defended the prosecutions this week, saying people charged had falsely checked a box on the voter registration form indicating their voting rights had been restored.
*“People sign up and they check a box saying they’re eligible, so obviously if they’re not eligible and they’re lying then they can be held accountable,” he said at a press conference on Tuesday. “Clearly this is a very, very easy provision of our law to know that somebody should not be registering or being able to do it if they have those very serious convictions.”
Comment: Did the Guardian not get the first memo or did the Brennan Center not get the second memo?
‘How election deniers could sway the 2024 election’
Vox
* GOP candidates in states including Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Arizona are laying the groundwork to challenge an unfavorable result.
*this year, according to recent Washington Post reporting, 54 of 87 GOP candidates running for positions with power over the way elections are certified in presidential battlegrounds have falsely claimed that the 2020 election was fraudulent, and say they would have done things differently.
*Wisconsin: A campaign to seize power from a bipartisan elections commission
*Pennsylvania: Where the governor can unilaterally shape elections.
*Arizona: A state that could be completely led by election deniers.
Comment: How is putting people in office who care about election integrity a bad thing? Explain it to me.
The GOP Will Take Your Right to Vote Away, And We’re All Gonna Die
New York Post
* Colorado secretary of state claims Americans could ‘lose right to vote within months’ if GOP wins election
*“What we can expect from the extreme Republicans running across this country is to undermine free and fair elections for the American people, strip Americans of the right to vote, refuse to address security breaches and, unfortunately, be more beholden to Mar-a-Lago than the American people,” the Colorado Democrat said during an interview with the Guardian.
Comment: This, from a woman who works to keep dead voters on the rolls. What game is she playing?
Heads Up:
We Remember
Tall Tales from Democrat Fails
Dems Back to ‘There Is No Voter Fraud’
Brennan Center
*Election police squads were pointless from the beginning. Voter fraud is extremely rare, and there is no reason whatsoever to believe that that miniscule number of cases have any partisan lean. Voter fraud didn’t decide the 2020 election, and it won’t decide the 2024 election.
Comment: There are relatively few cases because states won’t investigate or prosecute them. South Carolina hasn’t had a voter fraud prosecution in 18 years. That doesn’t mean there is no voter fraud in South Carolina, or elsewhere, for that matter. Just because the Dems ridicule the Florida unit now doesn’t mean there won’t be a lot of voter fraud attempted in Florida in the future or that the unit is unneeded. Why is it Democrats try to discredit every attempt at election integrity? What game are they playing?
There Is No Voter Fraud, But Too Many People Are Being Arrested for Voter Fraud
The Guardian
*Flanked by uniformed law enforcement officials, DeSantis announced the state was prosecuting 19 people, including Smith, for voter fraud. All of them had been previously convicted of murder or a sexual offense, and had voted in the 2020 election.
*DeSantis defended the prosecutions this week, saying people charged had falsely checked a box on the voter registration form indicating their voting rights had been restored.
*“People sign up and they check a box saying they’re eligible, so obviously if they’re not eligible and they’re lying then they can be held accountable,” he said at a press conference on Tuesday. “Clearly this is a very, very easy provision of our law to know that somebody should not be registering or being able to do it if they have those very serious convictions.”
Comment: Did the Guardian not get the first memo or did the Brennan Center not get the second memo?
‘How election deniers could sway the 2024 election’
Vox
* GOP candidates in states including Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Arizona are laying the groundwork to challenge an unfavorable result.
*this year, according to recent Washington Post reporting, 54 of 87 GOP candidates running for positions with power over the way elections are certified in presidential battlegrounds have falsely claimed that the 2020 election was fraudulent, and say they would have done things differently.
*Wisconsin: A campaign to seize power from a bipartisan elections commission
*Pennsylvania: Where the governor can unilaterally shape elections.
*Arizona: A state that could be completely led by election deniers.
Comment: How is putting people in office who care about election integrity a bad thing? Explain it to me.
The GOP Will Take Your Right to Vote Away, And We’re All Gonna Die
New York Post
* Colorado secretary of state claims Americans could ‘lose right to vote within months’ if GOP wins election
*“What we can expect from the extreme Republicans running across this country is to undermine free and fair elections for the American people, strip Americans of the right to vote, refuse to address security breaches and, unfortunately, be more beholden to Mar-a-Lago than the American people,” the Colorado Democrat said during an interview with the Guardian.
Comment: This, from a woman who works to keep dead voters on the rolls. What game is she playing?
Heads Up:
- Trump Allies Back Mass Challenge to Voter Eligibility in Georgia
- Some Republicans in Washington state cast a wary eye on an election security device (Albert sensors)
- [S]election Code documentary streams here for free - Tina Peters’ side of the story
- https://coloradosun.com/2022/09/07/tina-peters-colorado-supreme-court/
- Another hit piece on Conservative Partnership Institute criticizes the tax-exempt group for being too politically involved (Comment: why don’t these left-wing reporters start looking at ERIC, nominally a voter roll maintenance entity that is actually a thinly disguised voter registration drive for Democrats. Sound political to me.)
August 28, 2022
Dem Spin Machine Goes Round and Round
Spin Machine: Election Integrity Disempowers Minority Voters
NPR
*A combination of new election laws and congressional redistricting has made it harder for Black communities in Florida to organize and vote, activists say.
*Last year, Republican lawmakers in Florida passed Senate Bill 90, a sweeping law requiring people to apply to vote by mail more often. It also set new limits on drop boxes. And this year, legislators passed Senate Bill 524, which creates new and harsher penalties for voter registration organizations for things like turning in forms late.
*And notably, Frazier said, the latter law created a new policing unit focused on voting crimes.
*"I think all of that has a chilling effect. People are afraid of the police," he said. "We know that this is one of many attempts to suppress the Black vote."
*Black activists say the reaction to the 2020 election from Republicans leaders in the state is part of a larger effort to diminish Black voting power.
Narrative Machine Goes Round and Round
1)
Election Workers Quitting in Droves Because of the Violent Republicans
ABC News
*Since the 2020 election, states across the country have seen a slow exodus of election officials prompted by an unprecedented level of misinformation, harassment and threats, according to election experts and officials.
*And now, with only three months until Election Day, election offices in at least nine states including Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, Texas and New Jersey have seen a new wave of departures and early retirements.
*In Florida, Supervisor of Elections Mark Early told ABC News that election officials in the state have "felt the hate" from 2020 election deniers.
*Even more concerning, Howard said, is that she expects another exodus of election workers after the 2022 election cycle -- potentially leaving even more vacancies ahead of the 2024 presidential cycle.
*While numerous departing officials cite non-work-related issues as the reason for their departure, many point to how difficult their jobs have become over the last two years as they've faced increased scrutiny and mounting hostility from skeptics.
*"I think we're seeing it across the state," Major said. "We have seen a number of colleagues in our professional association who have decided to retire because the amount of work is just overwhelming and we're not properly compensated" -- a situation Major said has been exacerbated by a new statewide mandate requiring counties to conduct an election audit after every general election.
Comments:
- You know this is propaganda because they don’t tell you how many quit in previous years. There is no baseline frame of reference provided.
- You have to go deep into the story to find this: “numerous departing officials cite non-work-related issues as the reason for their departure.” And this: workers are quitting because of overwork and low pay. Imagine that.
- Are workers quitting because of voter harassment and threats of violence or because articles like this keep telling them there is voter harassment and threats of violence? Inquiring minds want to know.
- And the other side of the story is? There is no other side, to hear the Democrats tell it. And that’s why this article is propaganda, from start to finish.
2a)
Keeping the ‘Big Lie’ Lie Alive
Washington Post
*Facebook is again opting not to remove some election fraud claims and may instead use labels to redirect users to accurate information about the election. Twitter says it will apply misinformation labels or remove posts that undermine confidence in the electoral process such as unverified election-rigging claims about the 2020 race that violate its rules. (The company didn’t specify when it would remove offending tweets but said labeling reduces its visibility.)
*This stands in contrast to platforms, such as YouTube and TikTok, which are banning and removing 2020 election-rigging claims, according to recently released election plans.
*In 41 states that have held nominating contests this year, more than half the GOP winners so far — about 250 candidates in 469 contests — have embraced former president Donald Trump’s false claims about his defeat two years ago, according to a recent Washington Post analysis.
2b)
‘Big Lie’ - They Think They’re Getting Somewhere With This
Brennan Center
*Charlie Crist (D), a member of Congress and former governor, sent an email to supporters saying that those who attacked the Capitol on January 6 “were incited by false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, false claims that Gov. Ron DeSantis refuses to denounce. To this day, he still won’t admit the election was legitimate.”
3)
All Those Pesky New Election Integrity Laws Did Was Confuse Voters (Mail-In Voting Edition)
Gray Media
*good government groups like Common Cause Florida say some voters have come to them with confusion about casting their ballots because of new state laws restricting mail-in voting. We’ve also seen that in many cases, in counties where under the Voting Rights Act they’re required to have signage and materials in both Spanish and English, that we haven’t seen the same level of signage in Spanish,” said Amy Keith, CCF’s program director.
Comments:
- Note the immediate change-of-subject after the mail-in voting claim to other things. Pure propaganda.
- If the Dems want to see people creating confusion, they should look in the mirror. Read on:
“RANKED-CHOICE VOTING: A DISASTER IN DISGUISE”
Foundation for Government Accountability
*Ballots in ranked-choice voting elections are more complex than traditional “one-person, one vote” elections
*Exhausted ballots in elections with ranked-choice voting silence voters
*Districts using ranked-choice voting have lower voter turnout rates
*Ranked-choice voting changes and delays the election counting process
*THE BOTTOM LINE: Lawmakers should ban ranked-choice voting at all levels of government.
Dem Spin Machine Goes Round and Round
Spin Machine: Election Integrity Disempowers Minority Voters
NPR
*A combination of new election laws and congressional redistricting has made it harder for Black communities in Florida to organize and vote, activists say.
*Last year, Republican lawmakers in Florida passed Senate Bill 90, a sweeping law requiring people to apply to vote by mail more often. It also set new limits on drop boxes. And this year, legislators passed Senate Bill 524, which creates new and harsher penalties for voter registration organizations for things like turning in forms late.
*And notably, Frazier said, the latter law created a new policing unit focused on voting crimes.
*"I think all of that has a chilling effect. People are afraid of the police," he said. "We know that this is one of many attempts to suppress the Black vote."
*Black activists say the reaction to the 2020 election from Republicans leaders in the state is part of a larger effort to diminish Black voting power.
Narrative Machine Goes Round and Round
1)
Election Workers Quitting in Droves Because of the Violent Republicans
ABC News
*Since the 2020 election, states across the country have seen a slow exodus of election officials prompted by an unprecedented level of misinformation, harassment and threats, according to election experts and officials.
*And now, with only three months until Election Day, election offices in at least nine states including Colorado, Arizona, Nevada, Texas and New Jersey have seen a new wave of departures and early retirements.
*In Florida, Supervisor of Elections Mark Early told ABC News that election officials in the state have "felt the hate" from 2020 election deniers.
*Even more concerning, Howard said, is that she expects another exodus of election workers after the 2022 election cycle -- potentially leaving even more vacancies ahead of the 2024 presidential cycle.
*While numerous departing officials cite non-work-related issues as the reason for their departure, many point to how difficult their jobs have become over the last two years as they've faced increased scrutiny and mounting hostility from skeptics.
*"I think we're seeing it across the state," Major said. "We have seen a number of colleagues in our professional association who have decided to retire because the amount of work is just overwhelming and we're not properly compensated" -- a situation Major said has been exacerbated by a new statewide mandate requiring counties to conduct an election audit after every general election.
Comments:
- You know this is propaganda because they don’t tell you how many quit in previous years. There is no baseline frame of reference provided.
- You have to go deep into the story to find this: “numerous departing officials cite non-work-related issues as the reason for their departure.” And this: workers are quitting because of overwork and low pay. Imagine that.
- Are workers quitting because of voter harassment and threats of violence or because articles like this keep telling them there is voter harassment and threats of violence? Inquiring minds want to know.
- And the other side of the story is? There is no other side, to hear the Democrats tell it. And that’s why this article is propaganda, from start to finish.
2a)
Keeping the ‘Big Lie’ Lie Alive
Washington Post
*Facebook is again opting not to remove some election fraud claims and may instead use labels to redirect users to accurate information about the election. Twitter says it will apply misinformation labels or remove posts that undermine confidence in the electoral process such as unverified election-rigging claims about the 2020 race that violate its rules. (The company didn’t specify when it would remove offending tweets but said labeling reduces its visibility.)
*This stands in contrast to platforms, such as YouTube and TikTok, which are banning and removing 2020 election-rigging claims, according to recently released election plans.
*In 41 states that have held nominating contests this year, more than half the GOP winners so far — about 250 candidates in 469 contests — have embraced former president Donald Trump’s false claims about his defeat two years ago, according to a recent Washington Post analysis.
2b)
‘Big Lie’ - They Think They’re Getting Somewhere With This
Brennan Center
*Charlie Crist (D), a member of Congress and former governor, sent an email to supporters saying that those who attacked the Capitol on January 6 “were incited by false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, false claims that Gov. Ron DeSantis refuses to denounce. To this day, he still won’t admit the election was legitimate.”
3)
All Those Pesky New Election Integrity Laws Did Was Confuse Voters (Mail-In Voting Edition)
Gray Media
*good government groups like Common Cause Florida say some voters have come to them with confusion about casting their ballots because of new state laws restricting mail-in voting. We’ve also seen that in many cases, in counties where under the Voting Rights Act they’re required to have signage and materials in both Spanish and English, that we haven’t seen the same level of signage in Spanish,” said Amy Keith, CCF’s program director.
Comments:
- Note the immediate change-of-subject after the mail-in voting claim to other things. Pure propaganda.
- If the Dems want to see people creating confusion, they should look in the mirror. Read on:
“RANKED-CHOICE VOTING: A DISASTER IN DISGUISE”
Foundation for Government Accountability
*Ballots in ranked-choice voting elections are more complex than traditional “one-person, one vote” elections
*Exhausted ballots in elections with ranked-choice voting silence voters
*Districts using ranked-choice voting have lower voter turnout rates
*Ranked-choice voting changes and delays the election counting process
*THE BOTTOM LINE: Lawmakers should ban ranked-choice voting at all levels of government.
August 21, 2022
The Institutionalization of Democrat Advantage Through the Election Process Continues
The pattern continues: it’s the institutionalization of the Dems’ thumb on the scale. This is the second big development this cycle after Bidenbucks. But the Bidenbucks executive order was just the beginning. It was followed by
China Election Interference Looms
1)
“CCP-Linked TikTok To Crack Down On Election ‘Misinformation’, Partners With US Gov”
Daily Caller
*TikTok, a social media giant with ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), announced Wednesday it is partnering with a U.S. government organization and ramping up efforts to combat “harmful misinformation” on the app in preparation for the November midterm elections.
* TikTok is also launching an in-app election center to inform its users of voting information; users will be able to access state-by-state election information, provided by TikTok’s partner the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS), according to the press release. NASS will provide information on how to register to vote, how to vote by mail and where to find polling sites.
*TikTok is also working alongside non-governmental voter assistance organizations that target specific demographics and the Restore Your Vote program, which will assist voters with prior convictions, as well as the Campus Vote Project, which will help college students vote.
-Comment: Dem constituencies, all.
- Comment: TikTok press release here.
*TikTok will collaborate with independent intelligence firms and authorized fact-checking groups to evaluate videos and respond to misinformation.
-Comment: Aligning with left-wing ‘fact-checkers’, that’s just great. The pattern continues: it’s the institutionalization of the Dems’ thumb on the scale.
2)
Activists raised connections between the Konnech PollChief election worker management system at a meeting of the State Board of Elections in Virginia this week. Here is some background: “The CCP has an incredible amount of information stored about these election workers and their families that it has been using for more than a few years now in order to learn everything there is to know about how local elections are being run inside the United States.” Stay tuned on this one.
Dems Will Keep Playing the Race Card Until It Stops Working
1)
“Florida Republicans targeted Black voters, justice department says in filing’
The Guardian
*The department told a federal appellate court that a lower court had correctly evaluated claims of racial discrimination when it came to Florida’s new law. In March, US District Judge Mark Walker blocked new restrictions on the availability of absentee ballot drop boxes, regulations for third party voter registration groups, and a ban on providing food and water to people standing in line to vote.
*In his March ruling, Walker also took the unusual step of saying the risk of racial discrimination was so severe, Florida needed to get approval from a federal court for the next decade moving for changes in its voting law.
*The justice department said it agreed with the court’s findings that Florida lawmakers enacted those provisions knowing they would harm Black voters after the 2020 election in which turnout surged. The Florida law, the department said, violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits racial discrimination in voting practices.
*Florida lawyers dispute that the law is racially discriminatory.
*“Facially neutral laws regulating drop boxes for vote-by-mail ballots, the return of voter registration forms, and activity at or near a polling place fall squarely within the state’s power to manage “[t]he time, places and manner of holding elections”, lawyers representing the Florida secretary of state and attorney general wrote in a brief to the 11th circuit.
*“In concluding otherwise, the district court focused on the distant past and disparities rooted in evidence that was ‘limited’, ‘unclear’, ‘not necessarily representative’, and ‘not statistically significant’.”
2)
“New State Laws Hit Voters of Color Hardest”
Brennan Center
*Since the January 6 insurrection, dozens of states have enacted restrictive voting laws. Race played a big role in where these measures were introduced and passed, and their effects will fall especially hard on voters of color.
*Under the new law, however, voters will be booted off the mail voting list if they go four years without casting a mail ballot — even if the state has no reason to think they’ve moved or are otherwise ineligible.
*Our analysis shows that this change will have major, racially disparate effects. Latino and Black voters on the mail voting list are more than twice as likely to be at risk of removal as white voters.
Voting Vans are Back
Epoch Times
*A city van for voting visited majority-Democrat vicinities of Racine, Wisconsin, more often than it visited Republican ones, a complaint by the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) said.
*WILL said the city kept ballots in the vehicle during the night, a practice inconsistent with normal Wisconsin ballot security measures.
*The complaint asked for courts to order McMenamin to obey the law by ending the use of the voting van.
Locking Up the Felon Vote
Common Cause
*“The poll demonstrates that a majority of voters believe it is all of our responsibility to protect the freedom to vote, including the freedom of individuals who are completing their sentences in and out of prison. The State Innovation Exchange will continue to work with movement leaders and legislators to build the shared power needed to protect the freedom to vote,” said Carmen López, Senior Director of Democracy with the State Innovation Exchange.
More Democrat Tricks
1)
Dark-Money Groups Push Vote by Mail
2)
MASSIVE Democrat ‘Bot Farms’ Revealed Influencing Elections ... They’re Gearing Up for November & 2024
15 States Ask Biden to Rescind Bidenbucks Order
Y’all Politics
*In a statement released Thursday, Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson announced that he has joined 14 other Secretaries of State in a jointly signed letter to President Biden requesting that he rescind that Executive Order, saying the order “calls for federal agencies to act beyond their Congressionally-specified functions and infiltrate state-run elections.”
- Comment: Good government groups prompted the states. More background on Bidenbucks order here.
Time Running Out to Preserve 2020 Election Records (Sept. 3rd Deadline)
1)
The New American
*The South Carolina state election commission (SEC) is refusing to release voting records from 2020 in response to a citizen-led election-integrity group’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
2)
Louisiana Secretary of State Shows the Way
Patriot 911
*With the 22 month retention schedule rapidly elapsing, Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin has canceled the impending destruction of the 2020 presidential election documents and ordered them retained “until further notice.”
*... with all the questions surrounding the 2020 elections, many election integrity activists have been encouraging Secretary of State Ardoin to hang onto election related documents.
*That happened today, when Secretary Ardoin issued direction to the state’s registrars of voters to not destroy anything related to the 2020 election.
- Comment: The Louisiana SoS issued another directive taking the state out of ERIC.
Word to the Wise: Don’t Make Yourself an Easy Target
1) Threatening Elections Officials
Ohio Capital Journal
*The Senate panel called current and former election officials and members of law enforcement to discuss the threats and potential solutions.
*During a hearing on protecting election officials, Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite Jr. discussed how the Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force is prosecuting people who have threatened election officials. To date, the task force has investigated more than 1,000 complaints and has prosecuted five people.
*New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Tolouse Oliver said she had to leave her home for weeks under state police protection during the 2020 election cycle when she was “doxxed,” meaning her personal information was posted publicly.
2)
Poll Watcher Infractions
WUNC
*The North Carolina State Board of Elections is contemplating a change to the rules for partisan poll watchers after more than a dozen violations by mostly GOP-appointed precinct observers during the May primaries.
*elections officials in 15 North Carolina counties witnessed poll observers violate rules of conduct by — among other things — talking to and intimidating voters, frequently exiting and re-entering the voting area to make phone calls to their party headquarters, and trying to enter restricted areas where voting tabulations and data were being uploaded.
*The state elections board is considering another rule change. This revision would add a list of prohibited conduct by precinct officials, such as tampering with voting equipment and making statements about personal political views while on duty.
- Comment: Don’t hand the Dems easy victories and propaganda points. Make sure your team knows to do things the right way.
The Institutionalization of Democrat Advantage Through the Election Process Continues
The pattern continues: it’s the institutionalization of the Dems’ thumb on the scale. This is the second big development this cycle after Bidenbucks. But the Bidenbucks executive order was just the beginning. It was followed by
- election workers communicating directly with voters [REVERE]
- universities teaching election workers how to partner with media to fight 'misinformation'
- advocacy groups recruiting student poll workers
- more federal funding for protecting elections officials against harassment and violence, and now
- a federal government/CCP partnership (read on).
China Election Interference Looms
1)
“CCP-Linked TikTok To Crack Down On Election ‘Misinformation’, Partners With US Gov”
Daily Caller
*TikTok, a social media giant with ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), announced Wednesday it is partnering with a U.S. government organization and ramping up efforts to combat “harmful misinformation” on the app in preparation for the November midterm elections.
* TikTok is also launching an in-app election center to inform its users of voting information; users will be able to access state-by-state election information, provided by TikTok’s partner the National Association of Secretaries of State (NASS), according to the press release. NASS will provide information on how to register to vote, how to vote by mail and where to find polling sites.
*TikTok is also working alongside non-governmental voter assistance organizations that target specific demographics and the Restore Your Vote program, which will assist voters with prior convictions, as well as the Campus Vote Project, which will help college students vote.
-Comment: Dem constituencies, all.
- Comment: TikTok press release here.
*TikTok will collaborate with independent intelligence firms and authorized fact-checking groups to evaluate videos and respond to misinformation.
-Comment: Aligning with left-wing ‘fact-checkers’, that’s just great. The pattern continues: it’s the institutionalization of the Dems’ thumb on the scale.
2)
Activists raised connections between the Konnech PollChief election worker management system at a meeting of the State Board of Elections in Virginia this week. Here is some background: “The CCP has an incredible amount of information stored about these election workers and their families that it has been using for more than a few years now in order to learn everything there is to know about how local elections are being run inside the United States.” Stay tuned on this one.
Dems Will Keep Playing the Race Card Until It Stops Working
1)
“Florida Republicans targeted Black voters, justice department says in filing’
The Guardian
*The department told a federal appellate court that a lower court had correctly evaluated claims of racial discrimination when it came to Florida’s new law. In March, US District Judge Mark Walker blocked new restrictions on the availability of absentee ballot drop boxes, regulations for third party voter registration groups, and a ban on providing food and water to people standing in line to vote.
*In his March ruling, Walker also took the unusual step of saying the risk of racial discrimination was so severe, Florida needed to get approval from a federal court for the next decade moving for changes in its voting law.
*The justice department said it agreed with the court’s findings that Florida lawmakers enacted those provisions knowing they would harm Black voters after the 2020 election in which turnout surged. The Florida law, the department said, violated Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which prohibits racial discrimination in voting practices.
*Florida lawyers dispute that the law is racially discriminatory.
*“Facially neutral laws regulating drop boxes for vote-by-mail ballots, the return of voter registration forms, and activity at or near a polling place fall squarely within the state’s power to manage “[t]he time, places and manner of holding elections”, lawyers representing the Florida secretary of state and attorney general wrote in a brief to the 11th circuit.
*“In concluding otherwise, the district court focused on the distant past and disparities rooted in evidence that was ‘limited’, ‘unclear’, ‘not necessarily representative’, and ‘not statistically significant’.”
2)
“New State Laws Hit Voters of Color Hardest”
Brennan Center
*Since the January 6 insurrection, dozens of states have enacted restrictive voting laws. Race played a big role in where these measures were introduced and passed, and their effects will fall especially hard on voters of color.
*Under the new law, however, voters will be booted off the mail voting list if they go four years without casting a mail ballot — even if the state has no reason to think they’ve moved or are otherwise ineligible.
*Our analysis shows that this change will have major, racially disparate effects. Latino and Black voters on the mail voting list are more than twice as likely to be at risk of removal as white voters.
Voting Vans are Back
Epoch Times
*A city van for voting visited majority-Democrat vicinities of Racine, Wisconsin, more often than it visited Republican ones, a complaint by the conservative Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) said.
*WILL said the city kept ballots in the vehicle during the night, a practice inconsistent with normal Wisconsin ballot security measures.
*The complaint asked for courts to order McMenamin to obey the law by ending the use of the voting van.
Locking Up the Felon Vote
Common Cause
*“The poll demonstrates that a majority of voters believe it is all of our responsibility to protect the freedom to vote, including the freedom of individuals who are completing their sentences in and out of prison. The State Innovation Exchange will continue to work with movement leaders and legislators to build the shared power needed to protect the freedom to vote,” said Carmen López, Senior Director of Democracy with the State Innovation Exchange.
More Democrat Tricks
1)
Dark-Money Groups Push Vote by Mail
2)
MASSIVE Democrat ‘Bot Farms’ Revealed Influencing Elections ... They’re Gearing Up for November & 2024
15 States Ask Biden to Rescind Bidenbucks Order
Y’all Politics
*In a statement released Thursday, Mississippi Secretary of State Michael Watson announced that he has joined 14 other Secretaries of State in a jointly signed letter to President Biden requesting that he rescind that Executive Order, saying the order “calls for federal agencies to act beyond their Congressionally-specified functions and infiltrate state-run elections.”
- Comment: Good government groups prompted the states. More background on Bidenbucks order here.
Time Running Out to Preserve 2020 Election Records (Sept. 3rd Deadline)
1)
The New American
*The South Carolina state election commission (SEC) is refusing to release voting records from 2020 in response to a citizen-led election-integrity group’s Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
2)
Louisiana Secretary of State Shows the Way
Patriot 911
*With the 22 month retention schedule rapidly elapsing, Louisiana Secretary of State Kyle Ardoin has canceled the impending destruction of the 2020 presidential election documents and ordered them retained “until further notice.”
*... with all the questions surrounding the 2020 elections, many election integrity activists have been encouraging Secretary of State Ardoin to hang onto election related documents.
*That happened today, when Secretary Ardoin issued direction to the state’s registrars of voters to not destroy anything related to the 2020 election.
- Comment: The Louisiana SoS issued another directive taking the state out of ERIC.
Word to the Wise: Don’t Make Yourself an Easy Target
1) Threatening Elections Officials
Ohio Capital Journal
*The Senate panel called current and former election officials and members of law enforcement to discuss the threats and potential solutions.
*During a hearing on protecting election officials, Assistant Attorney General Kenneth Polite Jr. discussed how the Justice Department’s Election Threats Task Force is prosecuting people who have threatened election officials. To date, the task force has investigated more than 1,000 complaints and has prosecuted five people.
*New Mexico Secretary of State Maggie Tolouse Oliver said she had to leave her home for weeks under state police protection during the 2020 election cycle when she was “doxxed,” meaning her personal information was posted publicly.
2)
Poll Watcher Infractions
WUNC
*The North Carolina State Board of Elections is contemplating a change to the rules for partisan poll watchers after more than a dozen violations by mostly GOP-appointed precinct observers during the May primaries.
*elections officials in 15 North Carolina counties witnessed poll observers violate rules of conduct by — among other things — talking to and intimidating voters, frequently exiting and re-entering the voting area to make phone calls to their party headquarters, and trying to enter restricted areas where voting tabulations and data were being uploaded.
*The state elections board is considering another rule change. This revision would add a list of prohibited conduct by precinct officials, such as tampering with voting equipment and making statements about personal political views while on duty.
- Comment: Don’t hand the Dems easy victories and propaganda points. Make sure your team knows to do things the right way.
August 14, 2022
Sabotaging Trump, Again
Compact
If indictments and January 6th hoopla fails: Among the plans Dems are laying to prevent the return of Donald Trump to the presidency is a repeat of their 2020 election-gaming. The author predicts Dems will once again seek to “change the rules in advance in ways that favor Democrats and hurt Republicans, especially in swing states.” Impossible, you say? It’s already started:
COVID Games Start Up Again
Epoch Times
*A supervisor of elections for a Florida county has repeatedly overstepped his authority to implement COVID-19 mandates and voting procedures that appear to challenge numerous state laws, according to documents obtained exclusively by The Epoch Times just days before the start of Florida’s 2022 primary election cycle.
*In a letter dated Nov. 4, 2021, Paul Stamoulis, the supervisor of elections for Florida’s Charlotte County, informed “all applicants interested in serving as a Poll Worker” that they were “required to complete an enclosed Certification form,” verifying that they had “been inoculated for the COVID-19 virus.”
*Applicants were told they had to identify the type of vaccine they received and the dates the vaccine was administered. By signing the form, applicants were also acknowledging that they understood they would be required to wear a mask or a face shield, covering their nose and mouth, “at all times.” Applicants who could not “comply with this new policy” for “whatever reason,” were told they were “ineligible to work the 2022 Elections.”
[Comment - Translation: Republicans need not apply.]
Dem Elections Officials Communicating Directly with Voters - What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
The Federalist
*“CEIR has built a new, secure electronic messaging tool called REVERE, which will enable states to draw on phone numbers and email addresses contained in the voter file, and send texts, emails, and even voicemails to any set of voters.”
*CEIR ostensibly uses voter data obtained by ERIC from the states — specifically cell phone numbers and email addresses — for the program to “assist state election officials in combating foreign and domestic disinformation on social media and email.” During the 2020 presidential election, Georgia appeared to run a pilot program of REVERE. CEIR’s website states that Georgia used some of the CEIR funds it received for countering disinformation and “issuing public service announcements warning voters of disinformation.”
Alternative to ERIC:
*Womack has a background in IT and is developing a voter roll maintenance alternative for North Carolina called the Voter Information Analysis and Decision Support System. He said states should model their voter roll maintenance systems after Child Support Enforcement, where every state is responsible for its data and has the ability to do cross-checks with other states through synchronous messaging — without having access to another state’s data. Multiple factors could trigger cross-checks between states, including the national change of address directory.
Twitter Will Be Up to Its Old Tricks in 2022 Election
Gateway Pundit
* Twitter announced on Thursday that it will be meddling in the 2022 midterm elections.
* Twitter said it will censor people (conservatives) who post “false information about the outcome of the election.”
* Twitter also admitted it will shadowban (conservative) content they don’t like.
Dems Still Working Felon Constituency
Brennan Center
*“Voting with a Criminal Record in Florida: What You Need to Know,” written by voting and civil rights attorneys and policy experts, is meant for lawyers and advocacy experts looking to navigate Florida’s complex legal landscape for voting created by the dual passage of the Voting Restoration Amendment (Amendment 4), in 2018, and the state’s subsequent adoption, in 2019, of Senate Bill 7066 (SB 7066).
Dems Grasping at Straws to Play the Race Card
Brennan Center
*In Arizona, voters do not self-identify their race or ethnicity when they register to vote. To estimate each voter’s race or ethnicity, we use a technique common among political scientists called Bayesian Improved Surname Geocoding, which predicts race/ethnicity based on each voter’s last name and the demographics of the census block in which they live.
*While just 8.4 percent of white voters on the list went four years without voting by mail, this was the case for more than 21.1 percent of Latino voters.
[Comment - Let’s flip this around: According to this article, 8.4% of Whites voted w/o mail, means 91.6% voted by mail, while 21.1% of Latinos voted w/o mail, means 79.9% voted by mail. Does that mean that tightening mail voting rules will "disenfranchise" White more and Latinos less? Does the accusation in this article really make any sense?]
Montana Elections Process for Sale - Private Donations to Live On
Fox News
n March 2021, an email from an official with the Montana Association of Counties informed county election clerks the bill to ban what are sometimes called "Zuckbucks" is "dead and indefinitely postponed." In emails, one county official responded "Woot! Woot!" One wrote, "You’re all amazing." Another wrote, "That is so awesome."
The responses demonstrate local election officials are "addicted" to private money from potentially politicized actors, according to a recent report from the Public Interest Legal Foundation, a watchdog group that analyzed emails obtained in a public records request.
*"Direct leftwing funding of election administration is the last aspect to exert control over the election process. Purchasing the process, not the short-term electoral outcome, is the real play," the report says.
Watch This One: Possible Arizona Ballot Initiative Is a Democrat Fever-Dream
The situation is unclear but, potentially, a ballot initiative in Arizona would:
- make it easier for mental incompetents to vote
- open voting to ‘residents’ (noncitizens included)
- loosen citizenship verification
- push voter registration in high schools and government benefit offices
- institute online registration and same-day registration
- make all inactive voters ‘active’ to bloat the rolls and make election fraud easier
- etc. (one version of the text is here)
The View from Our Side
Sabotaging Trump, Again
Compact
If indictments and January 6th hoopla fails: Among the plans Dems are laying to prevent the return of Donald Trump to the presidency is a repeat of their 2020 election-gaming. The author predicts Dems will once again seek to “change the rules in advance in ways that favor Democrats and hurt Republicans, especially in swing states.” Impossible, you say? It’s already started:
COVID Games Start Up Again
Epoch Times
*A supervisor of elections for a Florida county has repeatedly overstepped his authority to implement COVID-19 mandates and voting procedures that appear to challenge numerous state laws, according to documents obtained exclusively by The Epoch Times just days before the start of Florida’s 2022 primary election cycle.
*In a letter dated Nov. 4, 2021, Paul Stamoulis, the supervisor of elections for Florida’s Charlotte County, informed “all applicants interested in serving as a Poll Worker” that they were “required to complete an enclosed Certification form,” verifying that they had “been inoculated for the COVID-19 virus.”
*Applicants were told they had to identify the type of vaccine they received and the dates the vaccine was administered. By signing the form, applicants were also acknowledging that they understood they would be required to wear a mask or a face shield, covering their nose and mouth, “at all times.” Applicants who could not “comply with this new policy” for “whatever reason,” were told they were “ineligible to work the 2022 Elections.”
[Comment - Translation: Republicans need not apply.]
Dem Elections Officials Communicating Directly with Voters - What Could Possibly Go Wrong?
The Federalist
*“CEIR has built a new, secure electronic messaging tool called REVERE, which will enable states to draw on phone numbers and email addresses contained in the voter file, and send texts, emails, and even voicemails to any set of voters.”
*CEIR ostensibly uses voter data obtained by ERIC from the states — specifically cell phone numbers and email addresses — for the program to “assist state election officials in combating foreign and domestic disinformation on social media and email.” During the 2020 presidential election, Georgia appeared to run a pilot program of REVERE. CEIR’s website states that Georgia used some of the CEIR funds it received for countering disinformation and “issuing public service announcements warning voters of disinformation.”
Alternative to ERIC:
*Womack has a background in IT and is developing a voter roll maintenance alternative for North Carolina called the Voter Information Analysis and Decision Support System. He said states should model their voter roll maintenance systems after Child Support Enforcement, where every state is responsible for its data and has the ability to do cross-checks with other states through synchronous messaging — without having access to another state’s data. Multiple factors could trigger cross-checks between states, including the national change of address directory.
Twitter Will Be Up to Its Old Tricks in 2022 Election
Gateway Pundit
* Twitter announced on Thursday that it will be meddling in the 2022 midterm elections.
* Twitter said it will censor people (conservatives) who post “false information about the outcome of the election.”
* Twitter also admitted it will shadowban (conservative) content they don’t like.
Dems Still Working Felon Constituency
Brennan Center
*“Voting with a Criminal Record in Florida: What You Need to Know,” written by voting and civil rights attorneys and policy experts, is meant for lawyers and advocacy experts looking to navigate Florida’s complex legal landscape for voting created by the dual passage of the Voting Restoration Amendment (Amendment 4), in 2018, and the state’s subsequent adoption, in 2019, of Senate Bill 7066 (SB 7066).
Dems Grasping at Straws to Play the Race Card
Brennan Center
*In Arizona, voters do not self-identify their race or ethnicity when they register to vote. To estimate each voter’s race or ethnicity, we use a technique common among political scientists called Bayesian Improved Surname Geocoding, which predicts race/ethnicity based on each voter’s last name and the demographics of the census block in which they live.
*While just 8.4 percent of white voters on the list went four years without voting by mail, this was the case for more than 21.1 percent of Latino voters.
[Comment - Let’s flip this around: According to this article, 8.4% of Whites voted w/o mail, means 91.6% voted by mail, while 21.1% of Latinos voted w/o mail, means 79.9% voted by mail. Does that mean that tightening mail voting rules will "disenfranchise" White more and Latinos less? Does the accusation in this article really make any sense?]
Montana Elections Process for Sale - Private Donations to Live On
Fox News
n March 2021, an email from an official with the Montana Association of Counties informed county election clerks the bill to ban what are sometimes called "Zuckbucks" is "dead and indefinitely postponed." In emails, one county official responded "Woot! Woot!" One wrote, "You’re all amazing." Another wrote, "That is so awesome."
The responses demonstrate local election officials are "addicted" to private money from potentially politicized actors, according to a recent report from the Public Interest Legal Foundation, a watchdog group that analyzed emails obtained in a public records request.
*"Direct leftwing funding of election administration is the last aspect to exert control over the election process. Purchasing the process, not the short-term electoral outcome, is the real play," the report says.
Watch This One: Possible Arizona Ballot Initiative Is a Democrat Fever-Dream
The situation is unclear but, potentially, a ballot initiative in Arizona would:
- make it easier for mental incompetents to vote
- open voting to ‘residents’ (noncitizens included)
- loosen citizenship verification
- push voter registration in high schools and government benefit offices
- institute online registration and same-day registration
- make all inactive voters ‘active’ to bloat the rolls and make election fraud easier
- etc. (one version of the text is here)
The View from Our Side
- Dinesh D’Souza - “Some election officials are quitting over voter integrity laws that red states have passed. This is a good thing!”
- 15 Republican Secretaries of State ask Joe Biden to rescind ‘Bidenbucks’ Executive Order goosing Democrat voter registration through the federal government
August 7, 2022
Dem Forces Link Election Integrity Bills to ‘Racist Sponsors’
Brennan Center
*Our key findings at the legislative district level include:
Representatives from the whitest districts in the most racially diverse states were the most likely to sponsor anti-voter bills.
Districts with higher racial resentment were more likely to be represented by lawmakers who sponsored restrictive bills.
* At the state level, we find:
It is the interaction between race and partisanship that matters. States with unified Republican control are not uniformly likely to introduce or pass restrictive provisions. In fact, predominantly white states are unlikely to introduce or pass restrictive provisions, regardless of which party controls the legislature. But racially diverse states controlled by Republicans are far more likely to introduce and pass restrictive provisions.
Dem Forces Institutionalizing Dim View of Election Integrity Efforts
Alpha News
*The University of Minnesota held an event recently where students working towards a certificate in election administration were taught to build strategic alliances with the media and celebrities to counter the voices of election security skeptics.
*The event was called “Election Accuracy: Going on the Offensive” and was put on by the university’s Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs as part of its program for training current and future election officials. The event featured speakers who taught students to build allies in the media ahead of Election Day to neutralize skeptics who may raise questions about practices like mail-in voting.
Study Data Portends Shift in Dems’ Rhetorical Approach to the ‘Big Lie’
NPR
[Comment - Recasting your argument to appeal to your opponent’s core values is a relatively recent development in propaganda science.]
*They found that while more than a third of voters said they don't trust the process for counting votes in the U.S., after people were shown affirmative but nonpartisan messaging about democratic systems persevering, that number significantly improved.
*"The good news from our research is that we found that by appealing to the values that American voters hold dear — things like freedom, independence, a longing for unity — that we actually can persuade voters that the Big Lie is really nothing more than a partisan power grab."
* A Justice Department official said in a Senate hearing this week that the federal law enforcement agency had reviewed more than a thousand hostile threats against election workers over the past year.
‘Republicans Will Disrupt the Midterms’ - Watch for False Flag Events
Last week, we summarized a training from the Scrutineers warning Dems, “The same people who pushed The Big Lie about the 2020 election are threatening to disrupt the midterms.” An election integrity team leader warns there will be false flag events - Dems posing as Republicans and making trouble in polling places in the 2022 elections, in order to make Republicans look bad and to prove the ‘truth’ of the narrative.
Dem Forces Defend Long Election Season
CEIR
*Put simply, a longer voting period bolsters efforts to quickly detect and mitigate technical glitches, fraud, cyberattacks, and other potential threats.
Dem Forces Seek Further Penetration of Election Apparatus in the Name of Fighting ‘Misinformation’
Brennan Center
*Recommendations for election officials
Plan well-timed voter education campaigns that include resources such as Frequently Asked Questions pages and video tutorials.
Provide educational resources in voters’ preferred languages.
Consider publishing rumor control pages to “prebunk” misinformation.
Build and maintain a network of partners and messengers — including secretaries of state, community groups, candidates of all affiliations, business groups, and the media — to amplify accurate election information.
Where languages other than English are common, election officials should seek partnerships with messengers who can reach such voters and have their trust.
*Recommendations for community-based organizations
Develop contacts among election officials and nonpartisan voting experts.
Provide accurate election information and tools to identify misinformation to community constituencies in preferred languages and formats.
Develop partnerships with trusted messengers to ensure community education efforts travel further.
Phill Kline Pushes Back on Bidenbucks
Just the News
*Federal agencies participating in voter turnout efforts "is wrong" because they will target who they want to turn out to vote, "and government can't be engaged in that process" because it's "partisan politics," Phill Kline, director of The Amistad Project, told Just the News.
The View from Our Side
Dem Forces Link Election Integrity Bills to ‘Racist Sponsors’
Brennan Center
*Our key findings at the legislative district level include:
Representatives from the whitest districts in the most racially diverse states were the most likely to sponsor anti-voter bills.
Districts with higher racial resentment were more likely to be represented by lawmakers who sponsored restrictive bills.
* At the state level, we find:
It is the interaction between race and partisanship that matters. States with unified Republican control are not uniformly likely to introduce or pass restrictive provisions. In fact, predominantly white states are unlikely to introduce or pass restrictive provisions, regardless of which party controls the legislature. But racially diverse states controlled by Republicans are far more likely to introduce and pass restrictive provisions.
Dem Forces Institutionalizing Dim View of Election Integrity Efforts
Alpha News
*The University of Minnesota held an event recently where students working towards a certificate in election administration were taught to build strategic alliances with the media and celebrities to counter the voices of election security skeptics.
*The event was called “Election Accuracy: Going on the Offensive” and was put on by the university’s Hubert H. Humphrey School of Public Affairs as part of its program for training current and future election officials. The event featured speakers who taught students to build allies in the media ahead of Election Day to neutralize skeptics who may raise questions about practices like mail-in voting.
Study Data Portends Shift in Dems’ Rhetorical Approach to the ‘Big Lie’
NPR
[Comment - Recasting your argument to appeal to your opponent’s core values is a relatively recent development in propaganda science.]
*They found that while more than a third of voters said they don't trust the process for counting votes in the U.S., after people were shown affirmative but nonpartisan messaging about democratic systems persevering, that number significantly improved.
*"The good news from our research is that we found that by appealing to the values that American voters hold dear — things like freedom, independence, a longing for unity — that we actually can persuade voters that the Big Lie is really nothing more than a partisan power grab."
* A Justice Department official said in a Senate hearing this week that the federal law enforcement agency had reviewed more than a thousand hostile threats against election workers over the past year.
‘Republicans Will Disrupt the Midterms’ - Watch for False Flag Events
Last week, we summarized a training from the Scrutineers warning Dems, “The same people who pushed The Big Lie about the 2020 election are threatening to disrupt the midterms.” An election integrity team leader warns there will be false flag events - Dems posing as Republicans and making trouble in polling places in the 2022 elections, in order to make Republicans look bad and to prove the ‘truth’ of the narrative.
Dem Forces Defend Long Election Season
CEIR
*Put simply, a longer voting period bolsters efforts to quickly detect and mitigate technical glitches, fraud, cyberattacks, and other potential threats.
Dem Forces Seek Further Penetration of Election Apparatus in the Name of Fighting ‘Misinformation’
Brennan Center
*Recommendations for election officials
Plan well-timed voter education campaigns that include resources such as Frequently Asked Questions pages and video tutorials.
Provide educational resources in voters’ preferred languages.
Consider publishing rumor control pages to “prebunk” misinformation.
Build and maintain a network of partners and messengers — including secretaries of state, community groups, candidates of all affiliations, business groups, and the media — to amplify accurate election information.
Where languages other than English are common, election officials should seek partnerships with messengers who can reach such voters and have their trust.
*Recommendations for community-based organizations
Develop contacts among election officials and nonpartisan voting experts.
Provide accurate election information and tools to identify misinformation to community constituencies in preferred languages and formats.
Develop partnerships with trusted messengers to ensure community education efforts travel further.
Phill Kline Pushes Back on Bidenbucks
Just the News
*Federal agencies participating in voter turnout efforts "is wrong" because they will target who they want to turn out to vote, "and government can't be engaged in that process" because it's "partisan politics," Phill Kline, director of The Amistad Project, told Just the News.
The View from Our Side
- J. Christian Adams: Vote-by-mail is the worst way to run an election
- *[In the 2020 election] ... 1.1 million mail ballots were returned as undeliverable, meaning they went to the wrong address and never reached the intended recipient. This reveals a whole other problem of states not having accurate up to date voter rolls.
- *the voter rolls are a mess. An analysis by the Public Interest Legal Foundation in 2020 found nearly 350,000 deceased registrants and nearly 40,000 duplicate registrants on America’s voter rolls. When you automatically send everyone on the voter rolls a mail ballot, these deceased and duplicate registrants are receiving ballots.
- RNC Hits Election Integrity Milestones 100 Days Before Midterm Elections
- *With 100 days left before the election, the RNC has surpassed a significant milestone with over 32,000 poll watchers in primary, general, and special elections so far this cycle. In addition, they have made over 65,000 unique volunteer engagements and have held over 2,700 Election Integrity trainings.
- *RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel told Breitbart News, “Since the start of the cycle, we’ve made a multi-million dollar investment in our Election Integrity program, from engaging in over 50 lawsuits to recruiting thousands of poll watchers and poll workers to ensure transparency at the ballot box.”
- *The chairwoman added that the committee is “firing on all cylinders to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat,”
July 31, 2022
Dems Oppose State Legislative Oversight of Elections
Brennan Center
[Note: Rogue elections changed the rules in the 2020 elections without proper authorization in state law. Bureaucrats adopted drop boxes, mail-in voting, and other vectors of election fraud, citing the pandemic as justification. Now, Democrats seek to make those infirmities permanent. And they wonder why we want state legislatures more actively involved in elections.]
*As you know, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Moore v. Harper, a case in which some North Carolina legislators have asked the Court to embrace the so-called independent state legislature notion.
*First, the notion would greenlight partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts.
*Second, the radical claim would remove constraints on voter suppression.
*Third, the notion would create election chaos, disenfranchising voters and overwhelming election officials.
*Fourth, the notion would remove critical checks against election interference and sabotage.
Zuckerbucks Group Pushes Poll Worker Recruitment
CTCL Mailing - 7/27/22 + Ideas List here
The mailing describes leveraging high schools and colleges to recruit student poll workers. It also describes a left-wing group - Power the Polls - that “can provide support for recruitment in general, and targeting specific needs such as tech savvy individuals, multilingual speakers, or any other specific skills or gaps you are seeking to fill. When election administrators flag a poll worker need, Power the Polls can boost recruitment through their various recruitment channels - partners, businesses, earned media, social media (and more)....” The ideas list stresses bilingual populations, underrepresented communities, teachers unions, and government employees - all of which lean Democrat.
USPS Sets Up New Office to Aid Mail-In Voting
Gateway Pundit
[Note: this is not good news for election integrity. The potential for election fraud through mail-in voting is well-recognized (e.g., Carter-Baker commission). And don’t forget all the problems with biased postal workers and their union reported during the 2020 elections, several of which are recounted in the article.]
* With mail-in ballots becoming a feature of all future elections, the United States government, specifically the United States Postal Service (USPS) is now creating a permanent division inside USPS to control the delivery and return of the election ballots.
Paper Shortage Ramifications
Center for Public Integrity
* “In this cycle, there may not be a way to reprint ballots late in the game,” said Matthew Weil of the Bipartisan Policy Center, which recently published a report on the paper shortage. That risks “chaos,” he said, in jurisdictions where a judge might strike a candidate from a ballot as the election draws close.
*...the group typically hands out voter registration forms at high school graduations and naturalization ceremonies around the state. In places like Harris County — home to Houston and a population of 4.7 million — the league received 6,000 fewer forms than it requested. “We weren’t able to provide them to everyone” at naturalization ceremonies, LeBombard said.
*The League of Women Voters eventually raised money to place a bulk print order of its own, something the state permits. The league printed 10,000 forms in Harris County alone.
Dems Go Into Overdrive to Discredit Election Integrity Efforts
1)
New state laws re Zuckerbucks, drop boxes, voter, ID, new investigative units and powers, absentee ballot restrictions are all based on election fraud myths.
Brennan Center
[Note: No, they’re all based on the bad stuff that happened during the 2020 elections, all of which has been copiously documented for anyone who cares to look at the evidence.]
2)
Election deniers are running for administrative positions in several states
Brennan Center / Election Denial in State Races
[Note: Stacey Abrams and Hillary Clinton are ‘election deniers’. One thinks she’s the Governor of Georgia and the other thinks she’s President.]
3)
Election integrity groups on the Right like the Conservative Partnership Institute and Stop the Steal are just ‘election deniers’.
Brennan Center | New York Times
4)
GOP poll workers are saboteurs and violent.
Scrutineers mailing - 7/26/22
* The same people who pushed The Big Lie about the 2020 election are threatening to disrupt the midterms.
*(A training teaches) Advance planning to keep yourself and others safe.
[Note: Telling members that outsiders are not to be trusted and a threat is a cult technique. Also, the way we hear the story, Senator Schumer has been itching to have a hearing on this but can't seem to find any victims of Republican poll watchers to testify.]
5)
Michigan Sheriff who brought a complaint against state officials for interfering with his investigation is a far-right kook.
Reuters
Dems Oppose State Legislative Oversight of Elections
Brennan Center
[Note: Rogue elections changed the rules in the 2020 elections without proper authorization in state law. Bureaucrats adopted drop boxes, mail-in voting, and other vectors of election fraud, citing the pandemic as justification. Now, Democrats seek to make those infirmities permanent. And they wonder why we want state legislatures more actively involved in elections.]
*As you know, the Supreme Court agreed to hear Moore v. Harper, a case in which some North Carolina legislators have asked the Court to embrace the so-called independent state legislature notion.
*First, the notion would greenlight partisan gerrymandering of congressional districts.
*Second, the radical claim would remove constraints on voter suppression.
*Third, the notion would create election chaos, disenfranchising voters and overwhelming election officials.
*Fourth, the notion would remove critical checks against election interference and sabotage.
Zuckerbucks Group Pushes Poll Worker Recruitment
CTCL Mailing - 7/27/22 + Ideas List here
The mailing describes leveraging high schools and colleges to recruit student poll workers. It also describes a left-wing group - Power the Polls - that “can provide support for recruitment in general, and targeting specific needs such as tech savvy individuals, multilingual speakers, or any other specific skills or gaps you are seeking to fill. When election administrators flag a poll worker need, Power the Polls can boost recruitment through their various recruitment channels - partners, businesses, earned media, social media (and more)....” The ideas list stresses bilingual populations, underrepresented communities, teachers unions, and government employees - all of which lean Democrat.
USPS Sets Up New Office to Aid Mail-In Voting
Gateway Pundit
[Note: this is not good news for election integrity. The potential for election fraud through mail-in voting is well-recognized (e.g., Carter-Baker commission). And don’t forget all the problems with biased postal workers and their union reported during the 2020 elections, several of which are recounted in the article.]
* With mail-in ballots becoming a feature of all future elections, the United States government, specifically the United States Postal Service (USPS) is now creating a permanent division inside USPS to control the delivery and return of the election ballots.
Paper Shortage Ramifications
Center for Public Integrity
* “In this cycle, there may not be a way to reprint ballots late in the game,” said Matthew Weil of the Bipartisan Policy Center, which recently published a report on the paper shortage. That risks “chaos,” he said, in jurisdictions where a judge might strike a candidate from a ballot as the election draws close.
*...the group typically hands out voter registration forms at high school graduations and naturalization ceremonies around the state. In places like Harris County — home to Houston and a population of 4.7 million — the league received 6,000 fewer forms than it requested. “We weren’t able to provide them to everyone” at naturalization ceremonies, LeBombard said.
*The League of Women Voters eventually raised money to place a bulk print order of its own, something the state permits. The league printed 10,000 forms in Harris County alone.
Dems Go Into Overdrive to Discredit Election Integrity Efforts
1)
New state laws re Zuckerbucks, drop boxes, voter, ID, new investigative units and powers, absentee ballot restrictions are all based on election fraud myths.
Brennan Center
[Note: No, they’re all based on the bad stuff that happened during the 2020 elections, all of which has been copiously documented for anyone who cares to look at the evidence.]
2)
Election deniers are running for administrative positions in several states
Brennan Center / Election Denial in State Races
[Note: Stacey Abrams and Hillary Clinton are ‘election deniers’. One thinks she’s the Governor of Georgia and the other thinks she’s President.]
3)
Election integrity groups on the Right like the Conservative Partnership Institute and Stop the Steal are just ‘election deniers’.
Brennan Center | New York Times
4)
GOP poll workers are saboteurs and violent.
Scrutineers mailing - 7/26/22
* The same people who pushed The Big Lie about the 2020 election are threatening to disrupt the midterms.
*(A training teaches) Advance planning to keep yourself and others safe.
[Note: Telling members that outsiders are not to be trusted and a threat is a cult technique. Also, the way we hear the story, Senator Schumer has been itching to have a hearing on this but can't seem to find any victims of Republican poll watchers to testify.]
5)
Michigan Sheriff who brought a complaint against state officials for interfering with his investigation is a far-right kook.
Reuters
July 24, 2022
Dems Move to Control Local Election Machinery
Daily Signal
*Two big money liberal operations, ready to spend $80 million each, are trying to determine who controls elections and how in the years ahead.
*One of the two liberal groups, Run for Something, is a political action committee founded by a former Hillary Clinton campaign staffer. In the spring, Run for Something established its Clerk Work project with the goal of electing clerks, election supervisors, registrars, recorders, and other local officials charged with running elections.
Note: This is inspired by George Soros’ efforts to elect liberal Secretaries of State and progressive prosecutors. Funding is coming from a Hillary Clinton (c)(4), Chan Zuckerberg, LinkedIn, ActBlue and others. I previously told you about the second project in May:
*The Alliance for Election Excellence is a five-year, $80 million project made up of seven nonprofit organizations aimed at advising local election offices on how to run elections in their jurisdictions. The Center for Tech and Civic Life is the leading organization among seven in the alliance. In 2020, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative gave $350 million to the Center for Tech and Civic Life.
Dems Working to Make Mail-In Voting Permanent
Capital Research Center
*Americans should be familiar with the true face of vote by mail: Amber McReynolds.
*McReynolds was key to many of the last-minute voting-law changes in Pennsylvania ahead of the 2020 election, which conservatives criticized as unconstitutional and vulnerable to fraud.
*McReynolds’ sworn testimony (paid for at a rate of $225 per hour) notes that “ballot drop-boxes can be an important component of implementing expanded mail-in voting,” “do not create an increased opportunity for fraud,” and “are generally more secure than…post office boxes.” She also supports the adoption of “text-to-cure,” a system adopted in 2020 in Colorado wherein voters are invited to email, fax, or send a text message to “cure” mistakes in their ballots (e.g., a missing signature) instead of sending an affidavit.
* California hired McReynolds to consult on its massive vote-by-mail expansion plans in mid-2020.
*Biden’s nominees uniformly count speedier delivery of mail-in ballots as central to their proposed “sweeping reforms” to the Postal Service. One can expect the other Democrats and McReynolds to support transforming the declining agency into a ballot-delivery service, since vote-by-mail is central to the Democrats’ future election strategy.
*In March, Biden asked Congress for $10 billion to fund “election infrastructure”—half of which would be used to boost USPS’s capacity for mail-in voting “in underserved areas” (translation: rich with Democratic votes), including free postage for ballots for an agency that has lost money for the past 15 years.
*But the strategy makes more sense when viewed in concert with other elements designed to give Democrats a permanent edge in future elections, like CTCL’s $80 million campaign to get Uncle Sam to pay for the things Mark Zuckerberg funded in 2020: more mail-in paper ballots, and taxpayer funding for drop boxes to bypass USPS should it fail to deliver the necessary votes.
Note: USPS is not an honest broker - “Those absentee ballots accumulate at the local Post Office. The Wisconsin voter integrity team, one of the best in the country, found evidence that the Post Office collected those ballots and gave them to the Voter Concierges — to vote.” (Jay Valentine in American Thinker)
Don’t Hire Republican Poll Workers (Wink, Wink, Nod, Nod)
Brennan Center
*Recent press reports indicate that individuals who promote falsehoods about Michigan’s election processes are being recruited as election inspectors. Some are outright encouraging prospective election inspectors to engage in improper conduct by, for example, tampering with election equipment or otherwise interfering with election administration.
*state and local officials should take reasonable steps to ensure that applicants are willing to and do, in fact, follow the law and lawful instructions from election officials.
Wisconsin, Washington State Bring Complaints Against Election Watchdogs to Avoid Scrutiny
Just the News
*As voter integrity groups continue to report irregularities in the 2020 election, some states are pursuing punitive reprisals to deter unwanted scrutiny, with Wisconsin's elections regulators slapping independent election watchdogs with fines, while Washington's Democratic attorney general has submitted a state bar complaint against an election integrity lawyer.
Bipartisan Group of Lawmakers Reaches Deal to Change Electoral Count Act
CNN
*A bipartisan group of senators reached a deal to make it harder to overturn a certified presidential election, marking the most significant response by Congress to former President Donald Trump's relentless pressure campaign to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
*senators are attempting to clarify that the vice president only has a ceremonial role in overseeing the certification of the electoral results.
*The proposal also includes key provisions intended to promote an orderly transition of presidential power by outlining guidelines for when eligible candidates can receive federal resources for a transition into office.
*It would also make it harder for members of Congress to attempt to overturn an election by increasing the number of House and Senate members required to raise an objection to election results when a joint session of Congress meets to certify them. Under current law, just one senator can join one House member in forcing each side to vote on whether to throw out results subject to an objection.
See also: Trump Slams Electoral Count Act Rewrite
ERIC Ties to Soros Organizations (historical)
Gateway Pundit
*On Friday we reported on how ERIC is working — The Largest U.S. Counties Removed Only ZERO to TWO Ineligible Voters From Their Voter Rolls the Last 4 Years
*Today we will focus on ERIC and its connections to Soros and far left organizations.
*The original funding of ERIC came from an “anonymous donor” and Pew Center On The States, who received grants from the Transparency & Integrity Fund of George Soros Open Society. But the leftist founders realized ERIC would not survive partisan politics. So the project transitioned to be fully funded *So who’s in control of ERIC, and what’ really going on here?
*David Becker, the lead driver of ERIC, is truly a scoundrel. In 2016 he founded CEIR. He distributed $69.5 mil in Zuckerberg money in 2020, aligned with CTCL
Dems Continue to Discredit Election Integrity Efforts
1) Canvassing (NPR)
Note: the Right is split on canvassing. J. Christian Adams advises against it: canvassers lay themselves open to accusations they are burdening civil rights (right to vote). One unfortunate example is the canvassing operation that asked who the person voted for; that has nothing to do with cleaning the rolls.
2) Canvassing and Poll-Watching (The Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/07/sham-fears-over-trump-loyalists-election-integrity-drive
3) Supposed ‘Election Deniers’, e.g., spread disinformation (NPR, NPR)
New from the Right: Artificial Intelligence Will Help Stop Cheating
1) Drop Boxes (Reuters)
*True the Vote officials described the coalition as a multi-faceted effort to encourage sheriffs to pursue election-fraud claims. In addition to grants meant to help sheriffs conduct surveillance of drop boxes, the group said it aims to provide sheriffs with “artificial intelligence” software to assist in analyzing the video they collect. True the Vote also plans to set up hotlines to alert sheriffs to suspicious activity at polling stations and ballot drop boxes.
2) Other Contexts (Jay Valentine in American Thinker)
*Several voter integrity teams, using advanced artificial intelligence technology, can check every registrant, at silicon speed, against over 30 databases, with a billion records, ensuring that the registrant is not living in an R.V. park, a church, or a UPS store, and that his address meets current legal standards.
*Sorry, Beto, but registering every itinerant is no longer the key to the Texas Governor's Mansion.
*For the first time, phantom voters are being identified before their registrations take effect.
*Living in an apartment where you do not designate the apartment number? Sorry, pal — you aren't voting this year. Registering from a church? There had better be enough bathrooms to meet the certificate of occupancy requirements for that county.
*More voters showing up in a county than there are eligible citizens? Flagged hourly! Alert issued before the ballots are counted!
*As ballots arrive during early voting, artificial intelligence snapshots aggregate voter identities. That guy who voted on day 2 in person, disappeared on snapshot 8, reappeared on snapshot 11 with his ballot changed to absentee...is identified. Before that ballot is tabulated, it is red-flagged, and the voter integrity team files a protest.
*Thirty-five thousand inactive voters, changed to active — then voted, then changed to inactive again? The A.I. systems pick this up with snapshot analysis. That scam is over!
*For the first time, voter integrity teams have technology ballot-harvesters cannot outrun.
*The battlefield has changed to real-time analysis, driven by artificial intelligence.
*The combined knowledge of a dozen gifted voter integrity teams, with 16 months of experience, is built into an artificial intelligence engine, identifying phantom voters before they are registered, before they can illegally vote.
Dems Move to Control Local Election Machinery
Daily Signal
*Two big money liberal operations, ready to spend $80 million each, are trying to determine who controls elections and how in the years ahead.
*One of the two liberal groups, Run for Something, is a political action committee founded by a former Hillary Clinton campaign staffer. In the spring, Run for Something established its Clerk Work project with the goal of electing clerks, election supervisors, registrars, recorders, and other local officials charged with running elections.
Note: This is inspired by George Soros’ efforts to elect liberal Secretaries of State and progressive prosecutors. Funding is coming from a Hillary Clinton (c)(4), Chan Zuckerberg, LinkedIn, ActBlue and others. I previously told you about the second project in May:
*The Alliance for Election Excellence is a five-year, $80 million project made up of seven nonprofit organizations aimed at advising local election offices on how to run elections in their jurisdictions. The Center for Tech and Civic Life is the leading organization among seven in the alliance. In 2020, the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative gave $350 million to the Center for Tech and Civic Life.
Dems Working to Make Mail-In Voting Permanent
Capital Research Center
*Americans should be familiar with the true face of vote by mail: Amber McReynolds.
*McReynolds was key to many of the last-minute voting-law changes in Pennsylvania ahead of the 2020 election, which conservatives criticized as unconstitutional and vulnerable to fraud.
*McReynolds’ sworn testimony (paid for at a rate of $225 per hour) notes that “ballot drop-boxes can be an important component of implementing expanded mail-in voting,” “do not create an increased opportunity for fraud,” and “are generally more secure than…post office boxes.” She also supports the adoption of “text-to-cure,” a system adopted in 2020 in Colorado wherein voters are invited to email, fax, or send a text message to “cure” mistakes in their ballots (e.g., a missing signature) instead of sending an affidavit.
* California hired McReynolds to consult on its massive vote-by-mail expansion plans in mid-2020.
*Biden’s nominees uniformly count speedier delivery of mail-in ballots as central to their proposed “sweeping reforms” to the Postal Service. One can expect the other Democrats and McReynolds to support transforming the declining agency into a ballot-delivery service, since vote-by-mail is central to the Democrats’ future election strategy.
*In March, Biden asked Congress for $10 billion to fund “election infrastructure”—half of which would be used to boost USPS’s capacity for mail-in voting “in underserved areas” (translation: rich with Democratic votes), including free postage for ballots for an agency that has lost money for the past 15 years.
*But the strategy makes more sense when viewed in concert with other elements designed to give Democrats a permanent edge in future elections, like CTCL’s $80 million campaign to get Uncle Sam to pay for the things Mark Zuckerberg funded in 2020: more mail-in paper ballots, and taxpayer funding for drop boxes to bypass USPS should it fail to deliver the necessary votes.
Note: USPS is not an honest broker - “Those absentee ballots accumulate at the local Post Office. The Wisconsin voter integrity team, one of the best in the country, found evidence that the Post Office collected those ballots and gave them to the Voter Concierges — to vote.” (Jay Valentine in American Thinker)
Don’t Hire Republican Poll Workers (Wink, Wink, Nod, Nod)
Brennan Center
*Recent press reports indicate that individuals who promote falsehoods about Michigan’s election processes are being recruited as election inspectors. Some are outright encouraging prospective election inspectors to engage in improper conduct by, for example, tampering with election equipment or otherwise interfering with election administration.
*state and local officials should take reasonable steps to ensure that applicants are willing to and do, in fact, follow the law and lawful instructions from election officials.
Wisconsin, Washington State Bring Complaints Against Election Watchdogs to Avoid Scrutiny
Just the News
*As voter integrity groups continue to report irregularities in the 2020 election, some states are pursuing punitive reprisals to deter unwanted scrutiny, with Wisconsin's elections regulators slapping independent election watchdogs with fines, while Washington's Democratic attorney general has submitted a state bar complaint against an election integrity lawyer.
Bipartisan Group of Lawmakers Reaches Deal to Change Electoral Count Act
CNN
*A bipartisan group of senators reached a deal to make it harder to overturn a certified presidential election, marking the most significant response by Congress to former President Donald Trump's relentless pressure campaign to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.
*senators are attempting to clarify that the vice president only has a ceremonial role in overseeing the certification of the electoral results.
*The proposal also includes key provisions intended to promote an orderly transition of presidential power by outlining guidelines for when eligible candidates can receive federal resources for a transition into office.
*It would also make it harder for members of Congress to attempt to overturn an election by increasing the number of House and Senate members required to raise an objection to election results when a joint session of Congress meets to certify them. Under current law, just one senator can join one House member in forcing each side to vote on whether to throw out results subject to an objection.
See also: Trump Slams Electoral Count Act Rewrite
ERIC Ties to Soros Organizations (historical)
Gateway Pundit
*On Friday we reported on how ERIC is working — The Largest U.S. Counties Removed Only ZERO to TWO Ineligible Voters From Their Voter Rolls the Last 4 Years
*Today we will focus on ERIC and its connections to Soros and far left organizations.
*The original funding of ERIC came from an “anonymous donor” and Pew Center On The States, who received grants from the Transparency & Integrity Fund of George Soros Open Society. But the leftist founders realized ERIC would not survive partisan politics. So the project transitioned to be fully funded *So who’s in control of ERIC, and what’ really going on here?
*David Becker, the lead driver of ERIC, is truly a scoundrel. In 2016 he founded CEIR. He distributed $69.5 mil in Zuckerberg money in 2020, aligned with CTCL
Dems Continue to Discredit Election Integrity Efforts
1) Canvassing (NPR)
Note: the Right is split on canvassing. J. Christian Adams advises against it: canvassers lay themselves open to accusations they are burdening civil rights (right to vote). One unfortunate example is the canvassing operation that asked who the person voted for; that has nothing to do with cleaning the rolls.
2) Canvassing and Poll-Watching (The Guardian)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jul/07/sham-fears-over-trump-loyalists-election-integrity-drive
3) Supposed ‘Election Deniers’, e.g., spread disinformation (NPR, NPR)
New from the Right: Artificial Intelligence Will Help Stop Cheating
1) Drop Boxes (Reuters)
*True the Vote officials described the coalition as a multi-faceted effort to encourage sheriffs to pursue election-fraud claims. In addition to grants meant to help sheriffs conduct surveillance of drop boxes, the group said it aims to provide sheriffs with “artificial intelligence” software to assist in analyzing the video they collect. True the Vote also plans to set up hotlines to alert sheriffs to suspicious activity at polling stations and ballot drop boxes.
2) Other Contexts (Jay Valentine in American Thinker)
*Several voter integrity teams, using advanced artificial intelligence technology, can check every registrant, at silicon speed, against over 30 databases, with a billion records, ensuring that the registrant is not living in an R.V. park, a church, or a UPS store, and that his address meets current legal standards.
*Sorry, Beto, but registering every itinerant is no longer the key to the Texas Governor's Mansion.
*For the first time, phantom voters are being identified before their registrations take effect.
*Living in an apartment where you do not designate the apartment number? Sorry, pal — you aren't voting this year. Registering from a church? There had better be enough bathrooms to meet the certificate of occupancy requirements for that county.
*More voters showing up in a county than there are eligible citizens? Flagged hourly! Alert issued before the ballots are counted!
*As ballots arrive during early voting, artificial intelligence snapshots aggregate voter identities. That guy who voted on day 2 in person, disappeared on snapshot 8, reappeared on snapshot 11 with his ballot changed to absentee...is identified. Before that ballot is tabulated, it is red-flagged, and the voter integrity team files a protest.
*Thirty-five thousand inactive voters, changed to active — then voted, then changed to inactive again? The A.I. systems pick this up with snapshot analysis. That scam is over!
*For the first time, voter integrity teams have technology ballot-harvesters cannot outrun.
*The battlefield has changed to real-time analysis, driven by artificial intelligence.
*The combined knowledge of a dozen gifted voter integrity teams, with 16 months of experience, is built into an artificial intelligence engine, identifying phantom voters before they are registered, before they can illegally vote.
July 7, 2022
J. Christian Adams: FBI, DOJ, Left-Wing Activists and Funders Coordinating with Election Officials
PJMedia
Editor’s Summary: Government documents show “behind-the-curtain relationships developing between progressive funders, federal authorities, corporations, state election officials, and leftist organizations.” Progressives are organizing state officials and third parties to discuss election administration at conferences, baseball games, etc. - no Republicans invited. The Zuckerberg-funded Center for Election Innovation & Research is involved.
Democrat Propaganda Claims All Attempts at Election Integrity are Sinister and Must Be Discredited
1)
Wanting to Look Inside Voting Machines
Brennan Center
*While the January 6 committee has rightly focused on the criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election, it is critical to remember that this threat is ongoing, and many of the people implicated continue to work to undermine future elections.
*wealthy Republican businessmen like Mike Lindell, founder and CEO of MyPillow Inc., and Patrick Byrne, former CEO of Overstock.com, have been active in the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election and are also supporting those working to gain unauthorized access to election systems.
*Who is behind the effort to gain this unauthorized access? In many cases, the very same people involved in the effort to overturn the 2020 election.
*Lindell is also linked with key players seeking to access voting machines in Colorado and elsewhere.
*Lindell told Reuters he has spent about $30 million and hired up to 70 people, including lawyers and “cyber people,” partly in support of Cause of America, an “election integrity” group
*Byrne has “funded independent efforts to send teams of ‘hackers and cybersleuths’ to access voting computer systems across the country,” according to the Daily Beast. He is connected to another instance of unauthorized access to election systems, this one in Georgia.
*This increased risk of both external and insider threats is why it’s so important we take steps now to protect future elections. That includes paying for and implementing measures to protect against unauthorized access to critical election systems.
2)
Recruiting Poll Workers and Poll Watchers
The Guardian
*Leading election denier promoting local groups to ‘oversee’ elections and determine if officials are ‘friend or foe’
*Cleta Mitchell was on Donald Trump’s legal team in 2020 and played a central role in his efforts to overturn the election result.
*In Raleigh, Mitchell eschewed the term “election denier”. “There were so many things wrong with that election,” she said. “That the outcome was correct, that’s all I deny.”
*During the same podcast appearance Bannon asked her whether the summits were a chance to learn how to “take over and grab hold of and control the local apparatus in their local elections and then to network throughout the country, so we have an apparatus that’s unbreakable?” “That’s absolutely what we’re doing,” Mitchell said.
*Mitchell’s effort is happening parallel to a significant effort from the Republican National Committee to recruit election workers. So far, the RNC has recruited 16 in-state election integrity directors, more than 15,000 poll workers, and 10,000 observers in swing states, according to Gates McGavick, an RNC spokesperson. Josh Findlay, the RNC’s national director of election integrity, spoke at the North Carolina summit. The RNC said it “works with other groups who have an interest in promoting election integrity” but that its poll worker focus was independent.
Dems All Aflutter Over Supreme Court ‘Independent State Legislature’ Case
Common Cause
*The U.S. Supreme Court decided today it will hear oral arguments during the October 2022 term in North Carolina’s consolidated Congressional gerrymandering case. The case, Moore v. Harper, advances a dangerous legal theory which would allow state legislatures to restrict the freedom to vote and fair elections with impunity.
*North Carolina lawmakers appealed to the nation’s highest court after the N.C. Supreme Court’s historic ruling held partisan gerrymandering illegal under North Carolina’s Constitution and demanded new maps. The decision prompted leaders in the General Assembly to pursue this fringe legal theory, seeking to give legislatures unchecked power to set elections and voting-related policies.
*Across the country, state lawmakers are asking federal courts to give them unchecked power to manipulate voting districts and dismantle the freedom to vote. Their argument, known as the “independent state legislature theory,” contradicts the U.S. Constitution and federal precedent.
[Note: more on the theory here]
Dems Lay Out Electoral Count Act Wish List
Brennan Center
*Congress must take advantage of bipartisan momentum to address the Electoral Count Act’s vulnerabilities as soon as possible.
*A number of bipartisan and nonpartisan groups, as well as key senators and the chair of an important House committee, have released reform proposals sharing many common elements. Effective Electoral Count Act reform must have several components.
*First, the law must explicitly confirm that the vice president does not have the power to alter the electoral vote count.
*The rules for objections must also be overhauled. Ideally, revisions would reaffirm that the grounds on which Senate and House members may object are narrow. They should also set a reasonable minimum threshold of support for any objection to be considered. If Congress does sustain an objection and disqualifies a slate of electors without accepting another slate, the total number of votes needed for a majority under the 12th Amendment must be correspondingly reduced.
*Further, Congress must clarify the rules around the appointment of electors. It should replace the vague language about “failed” elections with clearer language establishing that electors may only be selected after Election Day in very exceptional circumstances that make voting impossible, like a major natural disaster, and that the default remedy in such instances is to extend voting in affected areas, not to redo the election or appoint electors by some other means.
*Congress must also take other steps to counter after-the-fact tampering with presidential election results. It should specify that elector vacancies must be filled according to the law as it existed prior to Election Day.
*It also is critical that Congress, while not inviting frivolous litigation, make clear provision for legal actions to require certification of valid presidential election results
Feds Issue "Election Infrastructure Insider Threat Mitigation Guide"
CISA
Note: The Guide is for anyone interested in the mechanical nuts and bolts of election machinery or how the Dems could use insiders to rig an election.
*Individuals entrusted with access to election infrastructure can, at times, represent potential risks to the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of election systems and information.
*Practices that deter, detect, or prevent harm caused by insiders are an integral part of conducting secure elections.
*While election infrastructure stakeholders cannot predict or fully control the information environment around elections, they can educate their staff, volunteers, and vendors about MDM narratives and tactics.
*Insider Threats and Mis-, Dis-, and Malinformation
*BUILDING AN INSIDER THREAT MITIGATION PROGRAM
*Key Elements of Election Infrastructure Insider Threat Mitigation Programs
*Standard Operating Procedures
*Access Control
*Zero Trust Security Principles
*Chain of Custody
*ELECTION INSIDER THREATS IN FOCUS
*Vendors and Contractors
*Temporary Staff, Seasonal Staff, and Volunteers
J. Christian Adams: FBI, DOJ, Left-Wing Activists and Funders Coordinating with Election Officials
PJMedia
Editor’s Summary: Government documents show “behind-the-curtain relationships developing between progressive funders, federal authorities, corporations, state election officials, and leftist organizations.” Progressives are organizing state officials and third parties to discuss election administration at conferences, baseball games, etc. - no Republicans invited. The Zuckerberg-funded Center for Election Innovation & Research is involved.
Democrat Propaganda Claims All Attempts at Election Integrity are Sinister and Must Be Discredited
1)
Wanting to Look Inside Voting Machines
Brennan Center
*While the January 6 committee has rightly focused on the criminal conspiracy to overturn the 2020 election, it is critical to remember that this threat is ongoing, and many of the people implicated continue to work to undermine future elections.
*wealthy Republican businessmen like Mike Lindell, founder and CEO of MyPillow Inc., and Patrick Byrne, former CEO of Overstock.com, have been active in the effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election and are also supporting those working to gain unauthorized access to election systems.
*Who is behind the effort to gain this unauthorized access? In many cases, the very same people involved in the effort to overturn the 2020 election.
*Lindell is also linked with key players seeking to access voting machines in Colorado and elsewhere.
*Lindell told Reuters he has spent about $30 million and hired up to 70 people, including lawyers and “cyber people,” partly in support of Cause of America, an “election integrity” group
*Byrne has “funded independent efforts to send teams of ‘hackers and cybersleuths’ to access voting computer systems across the country,” according to the Daily Beast. He is connected to another instance of unauthorized access to election systems, this one in Georgia.
*This increased risk of both external and insider threats is why it’s so important we take steps now to protect future elections. That includes paying for and implementing measures to protect against unauthorized access to critical election systems.
2)
Recruiting Poll Workers and Poll Watchers
The Guardian
*Leading election denier promoting local groups to ‘oversee’ elections and determine if officials are ‘friend or foe’
*Cleta Mitchell was on Donald Trump’s legal team in 2020 and played a central role in his efforts to overturn the election result.
*In Raleigh, Mitchell eschewed the term “election denier”. “There were so many things wrong with that election,” she said. “That the outcome was correct, that’s all I deny.”
*During the same podcast appearance Bannon asked her whether the summits were a chance to learn how to “take over and grab hold of and control the local apparatus in their local elections and then to network throughout the country, so we have an apparatus that’s unbreakable?” “That’s absolutely what we’re doing,” Mitchell said.
*Mitchell’s effort is happening parallel to a significant effort from the Republican National Committee to recruit election workers. So far, the RNC has recruited 16 in-state election integrity directors, more than 15,000 poll workers, and 10,000 observers in swing states, according to Gates McGavick, an RNC spokesperson. Josh Findlay, the RNC’s national director of election integrity, spoke at the North Carolina summit. The RNC said it “works with other groups who have an interest in promoting election integrity” but that its poll worker focus was independent.
Dems All Aflutter Over Supreme Court ‘Independent State Legislature’ Case
Common Cause
*The U.S. Supreme Court decided today it will hear oral arguments during the October 2022 term in North Carolina’s consolidated Congressional gerrymandering case. The case, Moore v. Harper, advances a dangerous legal theory which would allow state legislatures to restrict the freedom to vote and fair elections with impunity.
*North Carolina lawmakers appealed to the nation’s highest court after the N.C. Supreme Court’s historic ruling held partisan gerrymandering illegal under North Carolina’s Constitution and demanded new maps. The decision prompted leaders in the General Assembly to pursue this fringe legal theory, seeking to give legislatures unchecked power to set elections and voting-related policies.
*Across the country, state lawmakers are asking federal courts to give them unchecked power to manipulate voting districts and dismantle the freedom to vote. Their argument, known as the “independent state legislature theory,” contradicts the U.S. Constitution and federal precedent.
[Note: more on the theory here]
Dems Lay Out Electoral Count Act Wish List
Brennan Center
*Congress must take advantage of bipartisan momentum to address the Electoral Count Act’s vulnerabilities as soon as possible.
*A number of bipartisan and nonpartisan groups, as well as key senators and the chair of an important House committee, have released reform proposals sharing many common elements. Effective Electoral Count Act reform must have several components.
*First, the law must explicitly confirm that the vice president does not have the power to alter the electoral vote count.
*The rules for objections must also be overhauled. Ideally, revisions would reaffirm that the grounds on which Senate and House members may object are narrow. They should also set a reasonable minimum threshold of support for any objection to be considered. If Congress does sustain an objection and disqualifies a slate of electors without accepting another slate, the total number of votes needed for a majority under the 12th Amendment must be correspondingly reduced.
*Further, Congress must clarify the rules around the appointment of electors. It should replace the vague language about “failed” elections with clearer language establishing that electors may only be selected after Election Day in very exceptional circumstances that make voting impossible, like a major natural disaster, and that the default remedy in such instances is to extend voting in affected areas, not to redo the election or appoint electors by some other means.
*Congress must also take other steps to counter after-the-fact tampering with presidential election results. It should specify that elector vacancies must be filled according to the law as it existed prior to Election Day.
*It also is critical that Congress, while not inviting frivolous litigation, make clear provision for legal actions to require certification of valid presidential election results
Feds Issue "Election Infrastructure Insider Threat Mitigation Guide"
CISA
Note: The Guide is for anyone interested in the mechanical nuts and bolts of election machinery or how the Dems could use insiders to rig an election.
*Individuals entrusted with access to election infrastructure can, at times, represent potential risks to the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of election systems and information.
*Practices that deter, detect, or prevent harm caused by insiders are an integral part of conducting secure elections.
*While election infrastructure stakeholders cannot predict or fully control the information environment around elections, they can educate their staff, volunteers, and vendors about MDM narratives and tactics.
*Insider Threats and Mis-, Dis-, and Malinformation
*BUILDING AN INSIDER THREAT MITIGATION PROGRAM
*Key Elements of Election Infrastructure Insider Threat Mitigation Programs
*Standard Operating Procedures
*Access Control
*Zero Trust Security Principles
*Chain of Custody
*ELECTION INSIDER THREATS IN FOCUS
*Vendors and Contractors
*Temporary Staff, Seasonal Staff, and Volunteers