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Ohio, Iowa Withdraw from Democrat Operative-Controlled Voter Roll ‘Maintenance’ Group ERIC


BY: VICTORIA MARSHALL | MARCH 20, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/03/20/ohio-iowa-withdraw-from-democrat-operative-controlled-voter-roll-maintenance-group-eric/

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Ohio and Iowa are the latest states to withdraw from the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), an interstate voter list maintenance group controlled by Democratic operatives, after a meeting of its board failed to deliver the aforementioned states’ requested reforms.

The two midwestern states follow in the steps of Florida, Missouri, and West Virginia, which withdrew from the alliance in early March over ERIC’s failure to remove its founder, Democrat operative David Becker, from its board, and its requirement that member states conduct voter registration outreach to eligible but unregistered residents in their states. Louisiana and Alabama withdrew last year.

In response to Florida, Missouri, and West Virginia’s withdrawal from the group, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose sent a letter to ERIC threatening Ohio’s departure if the board did not remove Becker — or “ex-officio members” — from its bylaws and cut the requirement for states to conduct partisan voter registration outreach. Instead, states should utilize ERIC’s data-sharing services “in the manner which they believe best serves their local interests,” LaRose argued.

While Becker seemingly complied with one of LaRose’s demands by tweeting that he would not seek renomination to ERIC’s board, ERIC refused to execute LaRose’s other reforms during a March 17 board meeting.

At the meeting, two proposals were put to a vote: changing ERIC’s bylaws to allow states to choose how they utilize ERIC’s data, and pairing the voter registration outreach requirement to a report that helps states catch double voting. Both proposals failed to pass because ERIC’s bylaws require an 80 percent majority before making a change.

“ERIC has chosen repeatedly to ignore demands to embrace reforms that would bolster confidence in its performance, encourage growth in its membership, and ensure not only its present stability but also its durability,” LaRose wrote in a letter announcing Ohio’s withdrawal on March 17. “Rather, you have chosen to double-down on poor strategic decisions, which have only resulted in the transformation of a previously bipartisan organization to one that appears to favor only the interests of one political party.”

Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate told Politico that the failed votes prevent ERIC members from doing what’s best for their states.

“Ultimately, the departure of several key states and today’s vote is going to impact the ability for ERIC to be an effective tool for the State of Iowa,” Pate said. “My office will be recommending resigning our membership from ERIC.”

As previously reported by The Federalist, ERIC is a voter roll management system used by nearly 30 states and the District of Columbia. It was created under the guise of helping states clean their rolls — i.e., remove dead and duplicate registrants — but does more to inflate them.

As a part of the alliance, member states are required to contact eligible but unregistered residents to register to vote. ERIC creates these lists of unregistered residents and sends them to member states to contact themselves. Given ERIC’s partisan origins and alliance with the Center for Election Innovation and Research (CEIR) — one of two groups that funneled $419 million in grants from Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg to mostly-blue areas of swing states during the 2020 election — it’s likely ERIC targets Democrat-leaning residents to register.

Despite ERIC’s obvious ties to the left, corporate media outlets are characterizing states that have withdrawn from the organization and its critics as “conspiracy theorists” who are peddling disinformation. Thankfully, states like Ohio and Iowa have ignored this intimidation campaign.

“I cannot justify the use of Ohio’s tax dollars for an organization that seems intent on rejecting meaningful accountability, publicly maligning my motives, and waging a relentless campaign of misinformation about this effort,” LaRose wrote. “Additionally, I cannot accept the board’s refusal – for a third time – to adopt basic reforms to the use of ERIC’s data-sharing services.”

Alaska and Texas are two more member states considering withdrawing from ERIC.

Victoria Marshall is a staff writer at The Federalist. Her writing has been featured in the New York Post, National Review, and Townhall. She graduated from Hillsdale College in May 2021 with a major in politics and a minor in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @vemrshll.

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Here’s Where GOP Election Officials Stand On Their State’s Ties To A Leftist-Controlled Voter Roll ‘Maintenance’ Group


BY: SHAWN FLEETWOOD | MARCH 15, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/03/15/heres-where-gop-election-officials-stand-on-their-states-ties-to-a-leftist-controlled-voter-roll-maintenance-group/

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The Federalist pressed GOP state election officials about their participation in the Electronic Registration Information Center.

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Since Missouri, Florida, and West Virginia’s recent withdrawal from the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) — a widely used voter-roll management group with ties to left-wing activists — last week, America’s legacy media have been in freak-out mode. In uniform fashion, leftist outlets have labeled the legitimate concerns raised by the aforementioned states as “conspiracy theories” promoted by “election deniers” and “right-wing media.”

As The Federalist’s Victoria Marshall reported, publications like The New York Times and Associated Press have gone out of their way to run grossly dishonest headlines such as “G.O.P. States Abandon Bipartisan Voting Integrity Group, Yielding to Conspiracy Theories” and “Election conspiracies fuel dispute over voter fraud system.” Predictably, these articles whitewash the issues surrounding ERIC, particularly its refusal to “require member states to participate in addressing multi-state voter fraud” and allowance “for a hyper-partisan individual to be an ex-officio non-voting member on its governance board.”

While painted as a nonpartisan venture by corporate media, ERIC is a voter-roll management system founded by far-left activist David Becker that was sold to states as a “quick and easy way” to administer their voter rolls. When states become ERIC members, they give voter data to the group — including the records of unregistered voters. Currently, ERIC has control of voter-roll data in more than half of states and the District of Columbia.

In addition to founding ERIC, Becker is also notable for launching the Center for Election Innovation and Research (CEIR), one of the major groups that received millions of dollars from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg in the lead-up to the 2020 election. Such grants were then poured into local election offices throughout the country to push Democrat-backed voting policies. Analyses have shown these “Zuckbucks” were heavily skewed toward Democrat municipalities, especially in swing states, effectively making it a giant Democrat “get out the vote” operation.

As The Federalist reported, ERIC transmits the voter-roll data it receives from states to CEIR, which “then develops targeted mailing lists and sends them back to the states to use for voter registration outreach.”

While currently a non-voting member of ERIC’s board, Becker announced on Tuesday he “will not accept renomination” to the board “when [his] term expires this week,” citing Republican criticisms of the group.

Despite these alarming ties, there are still several leading GOP state election officials who continue to participate in ERIC. In light of Missouri, Florida, and West Virginia’s collective withdrawal from the coalition, The Federalist reached out to these officials to inquire whether they’re reconsidering their state’s ERIC membership.

Alaska

While speaking with state lawmakers last week, Alaska’s Division of Elections director Carol Beecher revealed she was reconsidering the state’s partnership with ERIC, citing membership costs as the primary reason. A spokeswoman from the Alaska lieutenant governor’s office confirmed this assertion but noted the state “has not decided on whether to continue” as an ERIC member.

“List maintenance is an essential process to ensure our voter list is as accurate and current as possible, and ERIC is one of the tools that Alaska uses to assist in this process,” spokeswoman Tiffany Montemayor told The Federalist. Montemayor did not, however, address whether Alaska shares the concerns about ERIC raised by Missouri, Florida, and West Virginia.

Georgia

When pressed by The Federalist on whether Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger was reconsidering his state’s ERIC membership and if he shared the concerns espoused by the three aforementioned states, Raffensberger spokesman Mike Hassinger declined to answer, instead replying, “If you really believe that ERIC is ‘an interstate alliance controlled by Democrat operatives that encourages partisan outreach efforts under the guise of simple voter roll maintenance,’ you’re an idiot.”

Ohio

While once describing ERIC as “one of the best fraud-fighting tools that we have,” Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose has reversed course and is threatening to withdraw his state from the organization. In a letter sent to ERIC Executive Director Shane Hamlin last week, LaRose demanded the group comply with his proposed reforms in its Friday meeting.

“I will not accept the status quo as an outcome of the next meeting,” LaRose wrote. “Anything short of the reforms mentioned above will result in action up to an[d] including our withdrawal from membership.”

As The Federalist reported, “LaRose’s proposed reforms include removing ‘ex-officio membership positions’ from ERIC’s bylaws so as to cut left-wing activist David Becker from its board, as well as no longer requiring states to send out voter registration mailers to unregistered residents.”

Iowa

According to the Associated Press, Iowa GOP Secretary of State Paul Pate is among the nation’s leading Republican election officials “who said they [have] no intention” of leaving ERIC and who have “signaled strong support for the effort.”

“ERIC is an effective tool for ensuring the integrity of Iowa’s voter rolls,” Pate told the outlet.

Texas

In Texas, state lawmakers have introduced legislation that, according to The Texas Tribune, would end the state’s participation in ERIC. Under HB 2809, the Texas secretary of state would be required to “cooperate with other states and jurisdictions to develop systems to compare voters, voter history, and voter registration lists to identify voters: whose addresses have changed,” “who have been convicted of a felony,” or “who are registered to vote in more than one state.”

A companion bill (SB 1070) has also been introduced in the state Senate.

Virginia

Unlike most U.S. jurisdictions, Virginia doesn’t have a secretary of state, meaning the state’s elections department is tasked with overseeing election administration. When pressed on whether the department is reconsidering its participation in ERIC in light of Florida, Missouri, and West Virginia’s decision to withdraw, an agency spokeswoman didn’t provide a definitive answer on the matter.

“The Department of Elections engages in ongoing and extensive list file maintenance processes,” she said. “If there are any changes made to any of these processes, they will be announced publicly.”

South Carolina

In a statement provided to The Federalist, South Carolina State Election Commission spokesman John Catalano said that while the commission has “many sources of information to remove unqualified voters for a variety of reasons,” ERIC is currently their “only source for access to critical sets of data,” including the Social Security Administration’s death files and the “list of South Carolina voters who have registered in other states.”

“While our state’s health department provides us with reports of people who have died in South Carolina, these reports do not include South Carolinians who die outside the state’s borders. The Social Security Administration death data we receive through ERIC allows us to identify these voters and make them inactive,” Catalano said. “The State Election Commission’s view is that ERIC is a valuable and currently irreplaceable tool that allows us to remove unqualified voters from the voter registration rolls.”

Leading GOP state election officials from Kentucky, Texas, Pennsylvania, Iowa, and Utah did not respond to The Federalist’s request for comment.

This article has been updated to include a statement from South Carolina’s state election commission.

Shawn Fleetwood is a Staff Writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He also serves as a state content writer for Convention of States Action and his work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics, RealClearHealth, and Conservative Review. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood

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Lawsuit Forces Los Angeles County To Remove 1.2 Million Ineligible Voters From Rolls


BY: VICTORIA MARSHALL | FEBRUARY 27, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/02/27/lawsuit-forces-los-angeles-county-to-remove-1-2-million-ineligible-voters-from-rolls/

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Los Angeles County, California confirmed it had removed 1.2 million ineligible voters from its rolls thanks to a settlement with the conservative advocacy group Judicial Watch, the group announced Friday. Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit in 2017 on behalf of itself and four registered voters in Los Angeles County. Election Integrity Project California, Inc., another public interest group, was also a part of the lawsuit.

Under the agreement, Los Angeles had to send 1.6 million address confirmation notices to voters listed “inactive” on its voter rolls. According to the National Voter Registration Act — which requires states to maintain accurate voter rolls — states and counties must remove from their voting rolls voters who do not respond to such mailers and do not vote in the next two federal elections.

In its most recent progress report for complying with the settlement, Los Angeles told Judicial Watch it had removed a total of 1.2 million ineligible voters from its rolls. Last year, the county revealed that 634,000 of its inactive voters hadn’t voted in the past 10 years.

Back in 2017 when Judicial Watch first filed its lawsuit, it argued Los Angeles County had more registered voters than residents eligible to register and the “highest number of inactive registrations of any single county in the country.” According to data from the U.S. Election Assistance Commission at that time, voter registration for the county was 112 percent of its adult citizen population.

“This long overdue voter roll clean-up of 1.2 million registrations in Los Angeles County is a historic victory and means California elections are less at risk for fraud,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton in a statement. “Building on this success, Judicial Watch will continue its lawsuits and activism to clean up voter rolls and to promote and protect cleaner elections.”

This isn’t the first lawsuit of its kind by Judicial Watch. New York City recently removed 441,083 ineligible voters from its voter rolls after reaching a settlement with the conservative advocacy group. North Carolina also removed more than 430,000 ineligible registrants from its rolls due to a similar lawsuit, and Kentucky agreed to do the same in response to a lawsuit.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation is another good government group that has filed lawsuits to compel states including Michigan and Pennsylvania to clean their voter rolls to guard against potential election fraud.

Victoria Marshall is a staff writer at The Federalist. Her writing has been featured in the New York Post, National Review, and Townhall. She graduated from Hillsdale College in May 2021 with a major in politics and a minor in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @vemrshll.

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If Biden’s Federal Elections Takeover Is ‘Free and Fair,’ Why Are the Plans Completely Redacted?


BY: VICTORIA MARSHALL | FEBRUARY 09, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/02/09/if-bidens-federal-elections-takeover-is-free-and-fair-why-are-the-plans-completely-redacted/

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Despite finally fulfilling a FOIA request, Biden’s Department of the Interior sent Citizens United a heavily-redacted document.

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After several executive agencies in the Biden administration were sued for refusing to comply with Freedom of Information Act requests from conservative advocacy group Citizens United over the White House’s attempt to federalize elections, the Department of the Interior’s (DOI) Bureau of Indian Affairs finally turned over its first batch of requested documents. There’s one problem: More than half of the 54-page document is completely redacted.

“The Biden administration is the least transparent in history, and these absurd redactions are just the latest example. What are they trying to hide from the American people?” Citizens United President David Bossie told The Federalist.

As The Federalist previously reported, in March 2021, President Joe Biden issued an executive order directing hundreds of federal agencies to engage in a federal takeover of election administration. It also permitted federal agencies to work with “nonpartisan” third-party entities to get voters registered, yet left-wing dark money group Demos publicly admitted it’s worked with federal agencies, “in close partnership with the ACLU and other allies,” to advance the aims of Biden’s directive.

Such an order set off alarm bells among Republicans and good government groups, reminiscent of the widespread takeover of government election offices by Democratic activists and donors in the blue counties of key swing states during the 2020 presidential election. Through their infiltration of state and local offices, Democrats were able to conduct partisan get-out-the-vote operations and swing the election in then-candidate Biden’s favor. This order is a taxpayer-funded version of that effort, turning federal agencies — including those that dole out federal benefits — into voter registration hubs and partisan get-out-the-vote centers.

Citizens United wanted to find out more about it, which is why last June, it filed FOIA requests with the DOI and State Department seeking email and text messages that mentioned both the executive order and the Hatch Act, a law that prohibits executive branch employees from engaging in election activities. When the agencies failed to comply, Citizens United sued. On Jan. 31, DOI sent its first round of documents per Citizens United’s request.

But the 54-page PDF sent to Citizens United is mostly redacted, save for logistical emails between White House staff and agency department heads. The plan and implementation scheme for the “Promoting Access to Voting” executive order itself are completely redacted.

In a cover letter sent with the documents, the Biden administration defended the redactions under U.S.C. § 552(b)(5), which allows agencies to withhold information under the “Presidential Communications Privilege” (exists to ensure “the President’s ability to obtain candid and informed opinions from his advisors and to make decisions confidentially”) and the “Deliberative Process Privilege” (“protects the decision-making process of government agencies and encourages the frank exchange of ideas on legal or policy matters”).

But according to Jason Foster, president and founder of Empower Oversight, a transparency and government accountability group that frequently files FOIA requests, these redactions are a prime example of the federal government’s blatant over-redacting and censorship.

“Federal bureaucrats do everything in their power to conceal information from the public,” Foster told The Federalist. “Whether it’s over-classification or improper redactions and stonewalling Freedom of Information Act requests, they instinctively err on the side of hiding information to avoid embarrassment, conceal misconduct, or cover up corruption. It’s up to Congress to reform the FOIA process, and in the meantime, it’s up to independent organizations to sue aggressively to force the federal government to comply with transparency laws.”

While good government groups can sue over improper redactions, this process can usually take about a year to uncover just one document from a series of files, those familiar with the matter said. Now that Republicans control the House of Representatives, however, they have the power to compel the federal government to produce non-redacted versions of requested documents, a Citizens United official told The Federalist.

During the 117th Congress, nine House Republicans wrote a letter to the White House raising concerns about the executive order, specifically regarding the fact that the order supplants the authority of the states to set election law and administer elections under the Constitution. When asked about the Biden administration’s secrecy over its election’s directive, Freshman Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo., who chairs the Natural Resources Subcommittee on Indian and Insular Affairs, echoed her colleague’s sentiments.

“Everyone should have concerns about this executive order and the involvement of any federal agency in our election process,” Hageman told The Federalist. “First and foremost, elections are the constitutional responsibility of the states, not our federal bureaucracy. This is yet another example of the federal government overstepping its authority and infringing upon states’ rights. Even if this order was well intended — and I have serious doubts that it was — it is unconstitutional.”

Hageman emphasized that the White House cannot get away with such extensive redactions of election-related processes.

“Large-scale redactions are not in the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act,” Hageman added. “This is one of the few tools we have to hold our government accountable. Are we to accept that the information is classified to such an extent that the document is unable to be coherently interpreted? Sunshine is the best disinfectant, and the federal government cannot be allowed to continue to obscure and obstruct.”

Of particular interest in the 54-page document is a draft letter on page 32 from Indian Affairs Assistant Secretary Bryan Newland to White House Domestic Policy Advisor Susan Rice, formerly President Obama’s national security advisor and “right-hand woman” who is known for her involvement in spying on the Trump campaign in 2015 and lying about it. In that role, she also spread lies about the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, helped Obama staffers target Trump’s incoming National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, and turned a blind eye to the Biden family’s foreign business affairs.

One line in the draft letter reads: “The plan promotes voter registration and voter participation (REDACTED) and the Department’s agency action to achieve these objectives.” The redacted portion might point to a Hatch Act violation, a Citizens United official told The Federalist.

“These documents relating to the Biden White House’s efforts to turn the federal workforce into a partisan voter registration committee must be released to the public in their entirety,” Bossie said. “Congress must investigate this executive order to see if the Biden Administration is violating the Hatch Act on a massive scale.” 

When asked why the Interior Department isn’t being transparent with the public about Biden’s federal takeover of elections, the Bureau of Indian Affairs referred The Federalist to the U.S.C. § 552(b)(5) exemptions in the cover letter sent to Citizens United.

Victoria Marshall is a staff writer at The Federalist. Her writing has been featured in the New York Post, National Review, and Townhall. She graduated from Hillsdale College in May 2021 with a major in politics and a minor in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @vemrshll.

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Harvesting Low-Effort Votes Is Working Great for Democrats, So They’re Going for More


BY: VICTORIA MARSHALL | DECEMBER 28, 2022

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/12/28/harvesting-low-effort-votes-is-working-great-for-democrats-so-theyre-going-for-more/

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While some congressional Republicans might think the post-2020 election integrity fight is over, that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

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The dust of the 2022 midterm contests has barely settled and Democrats — invigorated by the Red Wave that evaporated under extended lax voting policies — are out to make sweeping changes to our nation’s election laws once again.

Think back to 2020, when Democratic governors and unsuspecting Republican lawmakers made unprecedented changes to state election policies in the name of Covid that included mandating universal mail-in balloting and a month of early voting. Some states have kept these changes permanently. But Democrats are not satisfied, and why should they be? With their gubernatorial power retained (they kept all but one of the governor’s offices) and newfound control of state legislatures in both Michigan and Minnesota, Democrats are keen to ram through a whole gamut of unprecedented and unconstitutional changes. It’s working, so they’re going to keep doing it.

As The New York Times reported, Democrats’ list of policy proposals for 2023 includes expanding automatic voter registration systems, preregistering teenagers to vote, granting the franchise to felons, and criminalizing what the left thinks is election “misinformation.” Of course, all these policy prescriptions have little to do with “voting rights,” but Democrats package them as such, and slander their opponents as — you guessed it — racists. 

Make no mistake about what these proposals are meant to accomplish. Take automatic voter registration. The New York Times notes that such a system — already adopted by 20 states — “adds anyone whose information is on file with a government agency — such as a department of motor vehicles or a social services bureau — to [a state’s] voter rolls unless they opt out.”

During the 2020 election, Michigan’s Democratic Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson sent out automatic voter registration forms to all eligible Michigan residents. As a result of the mailer, 114,000 people were automatically added to Michigan’s voter rolls. Many were duplicate and otherwise inaccurate registrations. By padding state voter rolls with new unlikely voters, Democrats can target unsuspecting blocs of voters, harvest their ballots, and put their candidates over the top. Various leftist 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations are solely dedicated to this.

As I’ve previously reported regarding Democratic attempts to court high school-age kids, multiple left-wing organizations are targeting young people to effectively propagandize them into future Democratic Party voters. As two-thirds of Gen Z voters backed Democrats this past midterm election cycle, Democrats are hoping to capitalize on this emerging voting bloc while also setting their sights on even younger kids. While leftist organizations have tried to couch their outreach efforts as bipartisan, Democrat politicians admit they’re going after younger voters to benefit the left.

“[Targeting young people] is something the left’s been pushing for quite a while — along with enfranchising noncitizens and automatic restoration of felon voting rights,” executive director of the Honest Elections Project Jason Snead told me earlier this month. “They’re always looking for new people to bring into the election system and calculating the targeted groups who will be more likely to vote Democratic.”

Along with making the state a key player in their efforts to pad voter rolls in their favor, Democrats are also intent on criminalizing any information that could hurt their electoral prospects. Known Democratic Party hack and Michigan Secretary of State Joycelyn Benson told the New York Times that she wants new rules and penalties for individuals peddling “misinformation” in election mailers or language on proposed ballot amendments. 

“The greatest threats to our democracy right now continue to be the intentional spread of misinformation and the threats and harassment of election officials that emerge from those efforts,” Benson said.

With Democrats’ history of using Big Tech to label the New York Post’s verified story on Hunter Biden as misinformation and its subsequent censorship during the 2020 election, as well as myriad true scientific claims that countered the bureaucracy’s Covid narrative, it’s clear Benson and fellow Democrats’ desire to censor “misinformation” is code for cracking down on any information Democrats don’t like.

What’s To Be Done

Republicans must be wary of Democratic efforts to fortify elections in 2023 and beyond. While some congressional Republicans might think the post-2020 election integrity fight is over, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Democrats have a massive ground game advantage over Republicans already, and if they pass these policy proposals — under the insufferable label of “voting rights” — in key swing states, that advantage will only grow to an insurmountable one. Republicans must realize election integrity is not a seasonal push nor a battle isolated to 2020. Rather, they must be on offense for years to come. 

Victoria Marshall is a staff writer at The Federalist. Her writing has been featured in the New York Post, National Review, and Townhall. She graduated from Hillsdale College in May 2021 with a major in politics and a minor in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @vemrshll.

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The Real Foreign Interference in Our Elections Is Happening at Your Local DMV


REPORTED BY: J. CHRISTIAN ADAMS | FEBRUARY 03, 2022

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/02/03/the-real-foreign-interference-in-our-elections-is-happening-at-your-local-dmv/

person filling out voter registration form

Foreigners are voting in our elections. It isn’t just in the sanctuary city of New York, where 800,000 foreigners just got the power to vote in municipal elections. Foreigners voting occurs all over the country. Over the past few years, the Public Interest Legal Foundation, of which I am president, has uncovered government records showing foreigners voting in Pennsylvania, Texas, New Jersey, and California.

Voter fraud deniers do not want to talk about the fact that foreigners are registering and voting in U.S. elections. They forget that the foreigners voting in American elections are sometimes victims of third-party voter registration drives that jeopardize their immigration status. These voter registration drives sign anyone up without regard to eligibility.

States are also victimizing these foreigners. Pennsylvania let aliens register to vote for more than two decades on a broken department of motor vehicles registration process. Unwitting aliens often don’t know they aren’t allowed to register and vote. Meanwhile, committing an election crime such as illegal voting subjects them to deportation. The only winner is the political party that reliably gets their votes.

Just this week, we uncovered more evidence of foreigners voting in our elections, this time in the swing state of North Carolina. In 2019, the North Carolina State Board of Elections denied the foundation access to documents relating to foreigners registering and voting, so the foundation sued the board. Following a ruling by the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals affirming that the National Voter Registration Act requires disclosure of these documents, the board agreed to settle the case. In the settlement, the board agreed to disclose the records relating to foreigners registering and voting. There have already been 38 indictments of foreigners registering to vote and some casting ballots. These records will conclusively show how many foreigners have been voting in North Carolina elections.

Inspecting these list maintenance documents serves an important purpose by allowing one to identify how foreigners are getting registered to vote. That is a key first step to improve the system and ensure that these errors do not continue to happen.

Often, it is the fault of the government. For example, a voter registration form will have a question at the top asking if the potential registrant is an American. One may check “no” and, due to errors by local elections officials, still get registered to vote. The same mistakes can happen when the potential registrant leaves the checkbox blank. The mistake may also be on the part of the potential registrant, incorrectly checking the box attesting that he or she is a U.S. citizen. The bottom line is foreigners are registering and voting in states across the country.

Nobody should want this. Only Americans should be electing American leaders. States need to examine their voter list maintenance procedures and ensure they are keeping non-citizens off the voter rolls.

We will continue the effort to catalog and expose government mistakes and election malfeasance. Americans have a right to know about the vulnerabilities in our election system.

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Senator Marco Rubio Op-ed: Democrats’ Voting Rules Takeover Is a Threat to Democracy


Commentary BY: Sen. MARCO RUBIO | JANUARY 12, 2022

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/01/12/democrats-voting-rules-takeover-is-a-threat-to-democracy/

Chuck Schumer

When Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., announced Senate Democrats’ New Year’s resolution to abolish the filibuster and ram through a partisan federal takeover of election administration, he framed it as an attempt to protect “free and fair elections,” the “foundation of our democracy,” from state governments. In reality, it is the leftist elites and their corporate allies, not the states, that pose the greatest threat to our constitutional system.

Free and fair elections are the foundation of our democracy, but the Democrats’ concerns about election rights are totally baseless. Progressives from all over the country — from President Joe Biden to Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams and Schumer — claim that Republicans are passing “voter suppression laws” to exclude their political opponents from the vote.

In reality, it is easier to vote in 2022 than it ever has been. Voter registration has been streamlined, and record turnouts show that Americans of all backgrounds are freely exercising their rights.

The left’s proposed reforms would restrict Americans’ freedom, not expand it. Legalizing ballot harvesting, for instance, would present more opportunities for corruption.

More generally, taking election administration powers away from the states and handing them to the federal government would not eliminate the potential for abusing those powers, it would just make it easier for officials in Washington, D.C., to abuse them — and it would further undermine our system of federalism.

In 2020, when election integrity fears swept other parts of the country, the state of Florida conducted its elections with peace, security from interference, and respect for all citizens, all in the midst of a worldwide pandemic. This is proof that with strong leadership, state governments are perfectly capable of holding the responsibility of election administration. Ironically, this year will be the first time that the president’s home state of Delaware allows in-person early voting, whereas Florida has had it for years. 

Left’s Broader Effort to Consolidate Power

Democrats’ campaign to centralize elections is part of a broader effort to consolidate power in the hands of a leftist elite class. This class wants to use that power to silence and disempower anyone who dissents from their radical progressive agenda.

Case in point: the very same people who said in 2005 that restricting the filibuster would mean losing to “the passions of the moment” and spell “doomsday for democracy” — Biden and Schumer  — want to eliminate the rule now that they are in power.

This power grab masquerading as democracy reform is bigger than just what goes on in the Senate. In 2020, leftist politicians closed churches and restricted in-home religious services while they let political protests, and eventually full-scale riots, go unnoticed. In 2021, critical race theory advocates indoctrinated our children and tried to remove parents from our schools. And this year, the Biden administration will begin forcing millions of Americans to get a Covid-19 vaccine to keep their jobs.

Collaboration from Communists and Corporations

In this movement, the political left has been aided by social media giants and mega-corporations. To gain favor with the Marxists in Washington, D.C., Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter censor dissenting voices, labeling unpopular views as “misinformation.” Amazon blacklists conservative authors. And banks that taxpayers bailed out in 2008 cancel accounts based on Orwellian “reputational risk.”

Of course, behind closed doors many of these same companies are in bed with a genocidal regime, the Chinese Communist Party. While they are eager to appear human rights champions, they lobby for trading goods made with slave labor and protect communist propaganda from negative customer reviews. It makes sense that corporations comfortable with totalitarianism abroad would be happy to silence dissent in the United States.

Those of us who are not on board with the progressive agenda should take note. America is still a free nation, and it will take some time before the situation here begins to resemble the dystopia that is communist China. But if it can happen anywhere, it can happen here, and censorship and consolidation of power are two important steps on the road to tyranny.

Americans need to remember where the greatest threats to our democracy really lie. If we focus our attention on exaggerated problems and imaginary fears, rather than the leftist elite power grab unfolding before our very eyes, we do so at our own peril.

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Poll: Opposition to Trump impeachment jumps 10% among independents

by John Gage | Washington Examiner
November 20, 2019

More independents oppose the impeachment proceedings against President Trump than support them, according to a recent poll conducted after the beginning of public testimony.

A Morning Consult- Politico poll released Tuesday said 47% of independents “oppose the current impeachment inquiry,” while only 40% of independents support impeachment. The poll represents a 10% drop in support among independents for the impeachment.

Overall, opposition increased to 45%, while support for impeachment dropped from 50% to 48%. The decrease in support follows the start of the second week of testimony by impeachment witnesses.

House Democrats opened the impeachment proceedings against Trump, claiming he threatened to withhold aid from the Ukrainian government if they did not investigate former Vice President Joe Biden. The poll was taken by 1,994 United States voters between Nov. 15 and 17.

Read the full article: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/poll-opposition-to-trump-impeachment-jumps-10-among-independents?utm_source=Examiner%20Today_11/20/2019&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=WEX_Examiner%20Today&rid=170588

Pa. Dems lose a state senator: declares himself independent, will caucus with GOP

by Charles Thompson | Penn Live
November 20, 2019

A state senator from Luzerne County said Tuesday he is changing his party registration from the Democratic Party to become an Independent, and will start attending caucus meeting in Harrisburg with the majority Republicans.

John Yudichak said in a statement that he is leaving his old party because he is weary of “’purist’ politicians who demand that you choose a battle camp. You must pass their litmus test, and declare if you support ‘us,’ or ‘them.’”

Yudichak, who won his third term in the Senate in 2018, said he believes that going forward he will best be able to serve the interests of his constituents as an independent, supporting Democratic and / or Republican ideas case by case when he believes they “serve the greater good and help government work for people rather than the narrow interests of the partisan ‘purists.’”

In a phone interview after he made his announcement, Yudichak said his move is the culmination of a growing feeling that the Democratic caucus in the Senate – which added a number of more liberal Democrats in the last election cycle – has become a harder place for him to represent his constituents from northeastern Pennsylvania.

Read the full article: https://www.pennlive.com/news/2019/11/pa-dems-lose-a-state-senator-john-yudichak-of-luzerne-county-declares-himself-independent-will-caucus-with-gop.html

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Complaint: TX Democrat Party Sent Altered Voter Registration Forms to Noncitizens


Posted on October 18th, 2018

URL of the original posting site: https://publicinterestlegal.org/blog/complaint-tx-democrat-party-sent-altered-voter-registration-forms-to-noncitizens/

(INDIANAPOLIS, IN.) – October 18, 2018: the Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) today alerted local, state, and federal law enforcement to campaign mailers directed at noncitizens in south Texas which encouraged voter registration via altered forms indicating they were U.S. citizens.

Texas Democrat Party mailers circulated around the Rio Grande Valley region of south Texas landed in the hands of lawfully present noncitizens in late September and early October. The envelopes contained voter registration applications where the answers to questions “Are you a United States Citizen?” and “Will you be 18 years of age on or before election day?” were pre-printed “Yes” for each.

 

“Noncitizens usually register to vote at the prompting of another party—usually a DMV clerk,” PILF President and General Counsel J. Christian Adams said. “Today, we are raising awareness to how the Texas Democrat Party—unintentionally or otherwise—is offering voter registration to noncitizens. Without some form of official intervention, confused noncitizens rather than the Texas Dems will end up paying the consequences of this matter.”

The letters from PILF went to district attorneys in the region, in addition to Texas and federal officers, explains why pre-printing answers about eligibility are problematic:

[W]hen Congress passed the NVRA, it envisioned a registrant making two separate affirmations of citizenship – both the checkbox as well as the signature attestation. This enables prosecutors to easier establish intent and state of mind when noncitizens illegally register to vote.

The Foundation urges the recipients of the referral to “investigate if and how many returned applications arrived in your local county elections office(s) … The Foundation yields to your office in addition to the state and local election officials on how best to protect ineligible registrants from casting ballots during the 2018 Election.”

Attached with the Foundation’s referral is an affidavit from a former employee of the 229th Judicial District Attorney, David. C. Kifuri, Jr., who initially came forward with the documents in question.

Digital versions of the referral letter and Kifuri affidavit are linked here.

Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) is a 501(c)(3) public interest law firm dedicated to election integrity. The Foundation exists to assist states and others to aid the cause of election integrity and fight against lawlessness in American elections. Drawing on numerous experts in the field, PILF seeks to protect the right to vote and preserve the Constitutional framework of American elections.

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HORROR: Terror Group Rallies American Muslims In Effort To End Donald Trump


waving flagBy: Davis on March 26, 2016

URL of the original posting site: http://conservativetribune.com/terror-group-muslims

While billionaire businessman Donald Trump has enjoyed a large amount of popularity among Republicans and independents, many groups, and even a few countries, have been working hard to stop his rise.

The New York Times reported that the Council on American-Islamic Relations and other radical Islamic groups in America are attempting to register Muslims as voters in the hope of stopping Trump at the ballot box. CAIR, which according to Breitbart has been linked by the FBI to several terror groups, has decided that rather than condemn the actions of the Islamic State terror group, they would prefer to stop the man speaking out against radical Islamic terrorism.

“The fear and apprehension in the American Muslim community has never been at this level,” Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for CAIR, stated. “The anti-Islamic tidal wave is spurring civic participation.”Bull

America Never Forget

That supposed “anti-islamic tidal wave,” to the degree that it exists at all, would be actually the result of the population getting sick and tired of radical Islamic terror attacks occurring on a regular basis. But let’s not worry about little things like truth and logic when there is political hay to be made.

Bigotry, we’re afraid, will never die. But perhaps if the Muslim community would stand up, accept that their religion has a problem, and work to fix that problem, they wouldn’t have to be treated with as much fear and suspicion.

“The community is very anxious and afraid about our security with all the rhetoric that we hear,” said Ghazala Salam, the president of the American Muslim Democratic Caucus of Florida.culture of deceit and lies

Americans are afraid about their security and safety because radical Islamic terrorists have been trying to infiltrate our country — with some success already — and trying to kill all of us. Somehow being “afraid” of hurtful words doesn’t seem on the same level as being afraid of hearing “Allahu Akbar” and then gunshots or a massive explosion.

If only CAIR would work as hard at eliminating radical Islamic terrorism as they do fighting Republicans. If they put that kind of effort into it, we wouldn’t need to even talk about them anymore.

H/T Breitbart

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Election Group: 141 U.S. Counties Have More Registered Voters Than People


waving flagBY:  August 27, 2015

 

Voters / AP

A public interest law firm is threatening to bring lawsuits against more than 100 counties across the United States that appear to have more registered voters than living residents.

The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF), a law firm dedicated to election integrity based in Indiana, recently sent statutory notice letters to election officials in 141 counties putting them on notice of their discoveries. The group says if action is not taken to correct the questionable voter rolls, they will bring lawsuits against every single county on the list.

“Corrupted voter rolls provide the perfect environment for voter fraud,” said J. Christian Adams, president and general counsel of PILF. “Close elections tainted by voter fraud turned control of the United States Senate in 2009. Too much is at stake in 2016 to allow that to happen again.”

The statutory notice letters argue the counties are violating the National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) and urge them to correct the issue, claiming their voter rolls contain a substantially high amount of ineligible voters. The group used federally produced data to come to their conclusions.

“Voter rolls across America have been discovered that contain substantial numbers of ineligible voters, resulting in the possible disenfranchisement of legally eligible voters via ballot dilution that threatens to subvert the nation’s electoral process,” a sample letter sent to the counties reads.

“Based on our comparison of publicly available information published by the U.S. Census Bureau and the federal Election Assistance Commission, your county is failing to comply with Section 8 of the NVRA,” it continues. “Federal law requires election officials to conduct a reasonable effort to maintain voter registration lists free of dead voters, ineligible voters and voters who have moved away.”

“In short, your county has significantly more voters on the registration rolls than it has eligible live voters and is thus not reasonably maintaining the rolls.”The Voting DEAD

According to PILF, the 141 counties targeted for their suspicious voter rolls span across 21 states and include: Michigan (24 counties), Kentucky (18), Illinois (17), Indiana (11), Alabama (10), Colorado (10), Texas (9), Nebraska (7), New Mexico (5), South Dakota (5), Kansas (4), Mississippi (4), Louisiana (3), West Virginia (3), Georgia (2), Iowa (2), Montana (2), and North Carolina (2), as well as Arizona, Missouri, and New York (1 each).

Data provided by the group also shows that some counties have voter registration rates that exceed 150 percent.

Franklin County, located in Illinois, contains the highest voter registration rate of any county on the list at 190 percent. Franklin is followed by Pulaski County, also located in Illinois. Pulaski boasts a 176 percent voter registration rate, according to the group.

Adams said former Attorney General Eric Holder and current AG Loretta Lynch refused to enforce the law because they don’t have a problem with corrupted voter rolls.

“Eric Holder and Loretta Lynch have deliberately refused to enforce this law because they have no problem with corrupted voter rolls,” Christian Adams told the Washington Free Beacon in an email statement. “They don’t like the law, so they don’t enforce it. It’s a pattern that has come to characterize this Justice Department.”

Partyof Deceit Spin and Lies In God We Trust freedom combo 2

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Obamacare exchange sends couple voter registration form pre-marked as Democrat


http://libertyunyielding.com/2014/03/30/couple-receives-voter-registration-form-pre-marked-democratic-obamacare-exchange/#tusSJmJcHkdxurQi.99

By Howard Portnoy on March 30, 2014 at 10:04 am

Last October, LU staff reported that Obamacare exchanges offered visitors an option to register to vote. Brian Cook, a spokesman for Medicare and Medicaid Services, was quoted as saying the exchanges were required to include that option under the 1993 National Voter Registration Act (NVRA).

But does that law also empower the exchanges to automatically register enrollees and, if so, as Democrats? That’s what happened to a La Mesa, Calif., couple. ABC News 10 reports that the couple, who asked not to be identified, received an envelope from Covered California, the state’s Obamacare exchange. Inside was a registration card pre-marked with an “x” in the box next to Democratic Party.

The husband told reporters:

I’m an old guy and I never would have noticed it, except I have an accountant that notices every dot and dash on a piece of paper as a wife.

SEE NEWS REPORT BELOW:

Voter

Covered California began mailing out voter registration cards to all enrollees last week after being threatened with a lawsuit by the League of Women Voters, Young Invincibles, other pro-Obamacare voting rights groups, and the ACLU. Their argument, presented in a 6-page letter mailed to Debra Bowen, the California Secretary of State, noted an “obligation on the part of public assistance agencies to provide voter registration services.” Their petition, which cited Section 7 of the NVRA, was based rather loosely on that provision, which reads:

Section 7 of the Act requires states to offer voter registration opportunities at all offices that provide public assistance and all offices that provide state-funded programs primarily engaged in providing services to persons with disabilities. Each applicant for any of these services, renewal of services, or address changes must be provided with a voter registration form of a declination form as well as assistance in completing the form and forwarding the completed application to the appropriate state or local election official. [Emphasis added]

Whether a website can reasonably be called an “office” is open to debate. What is not debatable is the illegality of selecting a party affiliation for private citizens.

There are other problems, noted by the couple:

[T]here’s an awful lot of people who are going to get this that are already registered and they don’t need to. I can see that, but I can’t see putting x on the form before it’s given to me in a little bitty box that nobody’s really going to notice.

Anne Gonzales, a spokeswoman for Covered California, told reporters that the application forms come directly from the Secretary of State’s office, with no fields pre-marked, adding that the couple should contact the Secretary of State, which “takes these violations of election law extremely seriously.” The couple claims they did reach out to the Secretary of State’s office and were unable to get hold of anyone. They then tried contacting the San Diego County Registrar of Voters, which told them to contact Covered California.

Is anybody having fun yet?

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Howard Portnoy has written for HotAir, NewsBusters, Weasel Zippers, Conservative Firing Line, RedCounty, and New York’s Daily News. He has one published novel, Hot Rain, (G. P. Putnam’s Sons), and has been a guest on Radio Vice Online with Jim Vicevich, The Alana Burke Show, and The George Espenlaub Show.

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