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</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2022/03/28/revealed-the-biggest-voter-suppressor-youve-never-heard-of/">https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2022/03/28/revealed-the-biggest-voter-suppressor-youve-never-heard-of/</a></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</div><div><b>da Diana Davis Spencer Foundation, a major funder of rightwing groups promoting the Big Lie about the 2020 presidential election, is also pushing voter suppression policies in states across the country, </b>the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) has learned.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Based in Maryland, the Diana Davis Spencer Foundation (“the Foundation”) is led by its namesake, the daughter of Shelby Cullom Davis</b>, <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">who made a fortune on investments and insurance and once chaired the right-leaning Heritage Foundation. The Foundation disclosed net assets totaling $1.5 billion on its 2020 IRS filing obtained by CMD.</span></div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>In analyzing the Foundation’s latest IRS filings between 2018 and 2020, CMD found that it gave $3.7 million to 13 voter suppression groups. Many of the grants are designated for “election integrity”—rightwing code words for restricting voting rights. </b></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In addition, the Foundation’s IRS filings for those three years detail $24 million in contributions to DonorsTrust</span>, the preferred donor conduit of the Koch political network. DonorsTrust pumped over $137 million into rightwing groups in 2020 alone—including millions to the same voter suppression groups funded by the Foundation—according to a CMD analysis of its last IRS filing.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Here are the voter suppression groups the Foundation supported between 2018 and 2020, presented in descending order of funding granted:</b></div><div>
</div><div><b>Lawyers Democracy Fund — $625,000 </b></div><div>Over the three-year period (2018–20), the Lawyers Democracy Fund (LDF) received a total of $625,000 in Foundation grants for its “election integrity project.” LDF’s IRS filings show that the Foundation’s $200,000 grants in both 2018 and 2019 accounted for its entire revenue those years.</div><div>
</div><div>The Foundation’s 2019 IRS filing states that the $200,000 is for “educational initiatives, policy research activities and public interest litigation efforts with respect to the vital issues of electoral system integrity throughout the United States.” Its 2020 grant of $225,000 is similarly worded.</div><div>
</div><div>LDF President Harvey Tettlebaum was the former president of the Republican National Lawyers Association (2003–06) and LDF Secretary Elliot Berke currently serves as Georgia’s special assistant attorney general and on the Board of Advisors of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission.</div><div>
</div><div>LDF advocates for strict voter ID laws and opposes all mail-in ballots and mandatory voter registration—policies that make it more difficult for people to exercise their right to vote.</div><div>
</div><div>Much of LDF’s public-facing work is in the courts. In January it helped overturn Pennsylvania’s no-excuse absentee voting law in Commonwealth Court and filed an amicus brief with Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) in the Supreme Court case Berger v. North Carolina State Conference of the NAACP, arguing in favor of giving the state legislature the power to intervene to defend the constitutionality of North Carolina’s voter ID law.</div><div>
</div><div>LDF and two other grant recipients, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and the Honest Elections Project, also filed briefs in the case, which was argued on March 21. The groups are trying to get the Supreme Court to embrace the “independent state legislature doctrine,” a fringe theory that resurfaced during attempts to overturn the 2020 presidential election, by arguing that only state legislatures can control federal elections—without any limitations from state courts or constitutions. </div><div>
</div><div>As the ranking member on the U.S. House Administration Committee, Davis leads Republicans in their Faith in Elections Project to combat efforts by Democrats to safeguard elections and expand access to the ballot box.</div><div>
</div><div><b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">American Civil Rights Union </span>— $550,000 </b></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The American Civil Rights Union (ACRU), rebranded as the American Constitutional Rights Union in 2019, received $550,000 in grants from the Foundation for its voter suppression efforts. ACRU had $810,000 in revenue as of its last IRS filing and is led by Lori Roman, ALEC’s former executive director.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">ACRU received grants of $125,000 in 2018 and $150,000 in 2019 for “election integrity” and $300,000 in 2020 for a project to “protect elderly and military votes” and “voter educational initiatives.” The longtime voter suppression group launched its Protect Elderly Votes Project in April 2020 “to protect seniors from those who may wish to defraud them of their vote.” </span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">ACRU’s Project “applauded” the Racine Sheriff in Wisconsin for identifying what he claimed were eight cases of voter fraud at a nursing home in the area. The sheriff recommended criminal charges against five election commissioners, but prosecutors have not acted due to a lack of evidence.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Two national leaders of misinformation about widespread voter fraud serve on ACRU’s policy board: Ken Blackwell, chairman of the MAGA Voter Suppression Center, and Hans von Spakovsky, manager of the Heritage Foundation’s Election Law Reform Initiative.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>Judicial Education Project / The 85 Fund — $450,000 </b></div><div>The Foundation granted the Judicial Education Project—now rebranded as The 85 Fund—$450,000 in 2020 for “election integrity initiatives in various states.” The large grant likely went to the fund’s Honest Elections Project (HEP).</div><div>
</div><div>HEP is a dark money voter suppression group formed in February 2020 by Leonard Leo‘s network. Known as Trump’s “judge whisperer,” Leo worked behind the scenes during the Trump administration to organize a rightwing takeover of the U.S. Supreme Court. </div><div>
</div><div>In addition to pushing misinformation about voter fraud, HEP has placed ads opposing mail-in balloting and advocated for purging voter rolls. It is also developing model voter suppression policies for ALEC, and organized at least two multi-day voter suppression summits for ALEC members preceding its Annual Meeting, along with last year’s States and Nation Policy Summit. </div><div>
</div><div>CMD obtained memos that HEP distributed to ALEC members at the summit, loaded with rightwing spin on Congress’s Freedom to Vote Act, state election laws, and polling from HEP Action claiming that West Virginia voters oppose the Freedom to Vote Act and ending the Senate filibuster.</div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>Blackwell and HEP’s Executive Director Jason Snead,</b> a former senior policy analyst for the Heritage Foundation (where he developed the Heritage Election Fraud Database with Spakovsky), were among the speakers at the first voter suppression summit. </div><div>
</div><div><b>American Legislative Exchange Council — $440,000 </b></div><div>The Foundation granted ALEC a total of $550,000 in 2020, with $440,000 of that designated exclusively for “accurate and verifiable voter rolls: an American public awareness campaign.” ALEC’s revenue for 2020 was just under $8 million.</div><div>
</div><div>In the past year, CMD has repeatedly blown the whistle on ALEC for falsely claiming that it does not work on voting issues. In September 2021, CMD obtained and published a video of CEO Lisa Nelson enumerating the states where ALEC was working on voting issues and stating that it would outsource actual model policy development.</div><div>
</div><div>“We don’t have model policy,” Nelson told the Council of National Policy audience. “We will be developing that at the Honest Elections Project [seminar]—through them.” ALEC held voter suppression summits with HEP at both of its national conferences in 2021.</div><div>
</div><div><b>In April 2021, The New York Times published details of a $24-million Heritage Action for America voter suppression plan</b> (obtained by Documented) that described its efforts to work closely with ALEC to move legislation in “crucial states.” </div><div>
</div><div><b>Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.)</b> also said at the time that he had spoken with state legislators through ALEC about passing state bills that restrict voting rights and impose greater legislative control over how elections are run. CMD research found that more than 100 Republican politicians connected to ALEC in just six battleground states were lead sponsors or co-sponsors of those bills.</div><div>
</div><div>When a broad coalition of more than 300 civil rights and democracy reform groups called for ALEC’s corporate members to leave the organization in June 2021 because of its voter suppression efforts, ALEC’s response was swift and righteous.</div><div>
</div><div>“ALEC doesn’t have ‘template legislation’ on voting because ALEC doesn’t work on voting issues,” its CEO Lisa Nelson wrote in a Real Clear Politics opinion piece. “The allegation is a literal fabrication.”</div><div>
</div><div>And, in a letter obtained and published by CMD, Nelson told ALEC members that “the assertions included in the coalition letter are categorically false…. ALEC does not create or promote policy models on election reform/security.”</div><div>
</div><div>The Foundation grant to ALEC—specifically earmarked for voting work—provides the latest evidence that ALEC is lying to both the public and its corporate members.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Public Interest Legal Foundation — $300,000 </b></div><div>The Public Interest Legal Foundation (PILF) received a total of $300,000 in 2019 and 2020 for “public interest litigation activities in connection with preserving the constitutional framework of the American elections project” and “election integrity.”</div><div>
</div><div>PILF is led by J. Christian Adams, who has moved the group to focus on the threat of “voter fraud,” despite lack of evidence that this is a widespread problem. PILF has filed numerous lawsuits across the country with the goal of purging state voter rolls, and saw its revenue climb to $3.8 million in 2020.</div><div>
</div><div>Its Board Chair Cleta Mitchell is a senior legal fellow at the Conservative Partnership Institute, where she chairs its Election Integrity Network. She participated in the infamous call in which Trump told Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to “find” enough votes to overturn Biden’s victory in the state.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Blackwell, Spakovsky, and insurrectionist John Eastman are also PILF board members.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>Texas Public Policy Foundation — $300,000 </b></div><div>In 2019 and 2020, the Foundation distributed grants totaling $300,000 to the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) for “election integrity.”</div><div>
</div><div>With revenues of $17.7 million in 2020, TPPF launched an Election Integrity Project in March 2020 that spread the myth of widespread voter fraud and helped Texas Republicans put the right spin on the voter suppression bills passed there in 2021.</div><div>
</div><div>TPPF also spread misinformation about the For the People Act, the federal voter protection legislation that has stalled out in Congress.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Thomas More Society — $250,000 </b></div><div>The Thomas More Society (TMS) received $250,000 in 2020 for its “election integrity initiatives.” The rightwing litigation outfit’s 2019 and 2020 IRS filings show its revenues almost doubled in that one year—from $9.6 million to $17.4 million.</div><div>
</div><div>TMS’s Amistad Project has played a key role in challenging the results of the 2020 presidential election alongside rightwing allies in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.</div><div>
</div><div>TMS is a proponent of the election subversion strategy of giving state legislatures (such as in Michigan) the ability to certify electors.</div><div>
</div><div>Earlier this month TMS also released a report on its review of the 2020 election in Wisconsin, where it claimed it found evidence of voter fraud. The organization shared an office with former Wisconsin Supreme Court Judge Michael Gableman, who was hired by State Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R) to conduct an election review.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Eagle Forum Educational and Legal Defense Fund — $200,000 </b></div><div>The Foundation distributed $200,000 in 2020 to the Eagle Forum Educational and Legal Defense Fund (EFELDF) for an “election integrity project.” EFELDF’s 2020 IRS filing is not publicly available but it brought in $1.3 million in funds in 2019.</div><div>
</div><div>EFELDF’s activities around elections and voting appear to center on filing amicus briefs such as the one in support of U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly in Kelly v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which asked the U.S. Supreme Court to forbid Pennsylvania from certifying its 2020 election results because the legislature allowed for no-excuse absentee voting.</div><div>
</div><div>Virginia Institute for Public Policy — $160,000 </div><div>The Virginia Institute for Public Policy (VIPP) received $60,000 in 2019 for “election integrity programs” and $100,000 in 2020 for “the Tuesday Morning Group coalition impact and election integrity program.”</div><div>
</div><div>The organization’s latest publicly available IRS filing (2019) details the smallest total revenue—$141,501—among all of the Foundation’s grant recipients. </div><div>
</div><div>On its website, <b>Virginia Institute claims its Tuesday Morning Group </b>“has over 1,000 participants representing more than 260 organizations.” It’s unclear whether the Virginia Institute-led Virginia Fair Elections Coalition is an offshoot of this group or the same one but with a different name.</div><div>
</div><div>Virginia Institute published The Virginia Model on “election integrity” earlier this month, detailing an approach that Lynn Taylor, president of VIPP and chair of Virginia Fair Elections, credits with helping the GOP realize massive gains in the 2021 elections.</div><div>
</div><div>In listing the “experts” it consulted with, the Virginia Fair Elections Coalition cites J. Christian Adams from PILF, Cleta Mitchell from Conservative Partnership Institute, Hans von Spakovsky from the Heritage Foundation, Ken Cuccinelli from Election Transparency Initiative, and Chris Marston, general counsel for the Republican Party of Virginia. The Thomas More Society’s Amistad Project is also listed as a “partner.”</div><div>
</div><div>As a guest on <b>Mitchell’s Who’s Counting podcast, </b>Taylor and her host recently touted the efficacy of the Virginia model in achieving voter suppression goals.</div><div>
</div><div>Abby Spencer Moffat, the Foundation’s CEO, sits on VIPP’s board of directors.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Judicial Watch — $150,000 </b></div><div>The Foundation gave Judicial Watch $150,000 in 2020 for “election integrity initiatives.” Tom Fitton leads the group, which reported $110 million (2020) in revenue and, like PILF, has focused its voter suppression efforts on purging voter rolls in the states.</div><div>
</div><div>The same year it received the grant, Judicial Watch published a “study” making dubious claims “that 353 U.S. counties had 1.8 million more registered voters than eligible voting-age citizens.”</div><div>
</div><div>While not directly addressing the study, the Brennan Center calls large-scale purges “risky because of the sheer numbers of records involved,” and cautions against using “third-party information” to remove voters because it does “not come directly from a voter” and “will inevitably include errors.”</div><div>
</div><div>Judicial Watch has also litigated to purge state voter rolls and filed amicus briefs supporting voting rights restrictions.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Americans of Faith — $100,000 </b></div><div>The Foundation gave Americans of Faith (AOF) $100,000 in 2020 for an “election integrity project.” AOF has no web presence beyond a Facebook page that hasn’t been active since May 2020.</div><div>
</div><div>Its latest publicly available IRS filing (2019) shows that it brought in $1.1 million for the mission of “voter education.”</div><div>
</div><div>AOF is led by Ralph Reed, founder and president of the dark money group Faith & Freedom Coalition and a GOP operative. Faith & Freedom is a Christian right electioneering outfit that works to turn out Republican voters.</div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>FreedomWorks Foundation — $100,000 </b></div><div>FreedomWorks Foundation received $100,000 in 2020 “to be allocated exclusively toward the election integrity program.” Despite bringing in $8.3 million in revenue that year, FreedomWorks Foundation does not have a web presence. </div><div>
</div><div>Its larger sister organization, FreedomWorks, is a major rightwing group that launched the National Election Protection Initiative in March 2021. Led by Mitchell, it has focused on opposing federal voting rights bills, backing voter suppression legislation, and building state “election integrity” infrastructure in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.</div><div>
</div><div>In 2020, the year its Foundation received the Diana Davis Spencer Foundation grant, FreedomWorks held “Election Protection” trainings for activists to counter “mail-in ballot fraud.”</div><div>
</div><div><b>Ballotpedia — $50,000 </b></div><div>The Foundation granted Ballotpedia $50,000 in 2019 for “general support and the Election Integrity Content Project.” Officially registered with the IRS as the Lucy Burns Institute, Ballotpedia brings in over $8 million in revenue, and is run by rightwing operative Leslie Graves.</div><div>
</div><div>The group publishes pages on “election integrity” and “voter suppression” that may be part of the Foundation-funded content project.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>About David Armiak</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"></font></div><div><h4 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></h4><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">what exactly her role in legal coup? how does her work relate to Ginni's actions? one place says she wrote coup memo, another says she commissioned (eastman?) to do it?</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></div><h4 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">she just popped up in something i did not put here? 3 22</font></h4><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">thot it might be eastman search terms but no</font></div><h4 style="background: none rgb(255, 255, 255); margin: 0.3em 0px 0px; overflow: hidden; padding-top: 0.5em; padding-bottom: 0px; border-bottom: 0px; line-height: 1.6;"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></h4><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">MMA 8 22</font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></div><div><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; color: rgb(58, 67, 78); font-family: bagatela, serif; font-size: 19.7354px; background-color: rgb(239, 243, 247);">BANNON (HOST): [Steve] Cortes, and he and I didn’t talk, we talked about his segments and how we’re going to go through the economic data. We always talk beforehand about what's the best way to lay that out. But we didn’t talk about what he brought up, which was the <b>Politico piece. I saw it I think at zero six hundred or seven, whenever it popped, and it was their lead story and they meant it as a hit piece. And I’m reading this thing, the RNC is working with these new groups, and it’s Cleta Mitchell,</b> she’s been on the show many times talking about it, but the RNC, and they meant it as a hit piece and Cortes said, hey this thing was like a paid advertisement cause it shows you the quality of training they’re getting and now the RNC is getting involved. I said hey, I think they’re sending it out to the - to make sure the RNC donors see it, that they’re now working with the crazies.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; color: rgb(58, 67, 78); font-family: bagatela, serif; font-size: 19.7354px; background-color: rgb(239, 243, 247);">Cleta Mitchell, tell us about the piece and particularly what you guys are doing now in conjunction with the RNC cause every time you have these summits, we send people, I get tremendous feedback of people that now are going to get engaged now and be part of it, it’s changed their lives. The comradery. But most importantly is the technical details, not war stories, you teach them technical details about how to be election officials, how to be poll workers, right? Not just poll watchers. So walk us through why did Politico try to take you out this morning ma’am?</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; color: rgb(58, 67, 78); font-family: bagatela, serif; font-size: 19.7354px; background-color: rgb(239, 243, 247);">CLETA MITCHELL (GUEST): Well, thank you for having me Steve, you’re always so great to help us tell our story. <b>Politico got a tape, an audio tape, from our Arizona summit in which I was presenting to the group there about how the Biden administration is using our tax dollars to turn every federal agency into a Democratic political operation. And I used the language that they use, which is their new Democratic majority, that this is language of the left and I just traced their language showing that that’s what they're doing with our tax dollars.</b></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; color: rgb(58, 67, 78); font-family: bagatela, serif; font-size: 19.7354px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(239, 243, 247);"><b>Biden issued an executive order based on a plan that was put to him by a left-wing organization, Demos, if you want to find out about it just go to Demos dot org and you can look it up</b>. </span><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">They’re the ones who sold this to him. They’ve got Susan Rice in the White House running the program. And it’s an executive order that orders every federal agency to develop a voter registration and turnout program and then they’re going to give grants to approved groups. Guess who’s going to approve those groups? Susan Rice. Excuse me. And so I talked about this at the Arizona summit, I went through the language and so we’ve decided to put that out there. We’re putting it on our website today, the entire audio.[tucker perm dem maj?]</span></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; color: rgb(58, 67, 78); font-family: bagatela, serif; font-size: 19.7354px; background-color: rgb(239, 243, 247);">…</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; color: rgb(58, 67, 78); font-family: bagatela, serif; font-size: 19.7354px; background-color: rgb(239, 243, 247);">MITCHELL: So, they're going to do with our tax dollars what they did with <b>Zuckerbucks in 2020.</b> And that's what I was teaching. I was giving the presentation in Arizona –[how to gerry?]</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; color: rgb(58, 67, 78); font-family: bagatela, serif; font-size: 19.7354px; background-color: rgb(239, 243, 247);">BANNON: Yes.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; color: rgb(58, 67, 78); font-family: bagatela, serif; font-size: 19.7354px; background-color: rgb(239, 243, 247);">MITCHELL: – showing what they were doing. And they are saying, the Politico article says that I was complaining and I was engaged in voter suppression because I didn’t want these groups to be registered and mobilized. No! If those people are going to be registered and mobilized, let the Democratic Party pay for it. Let the candidates pay for it.<b> Don’t use my tax money to register and turn out people to vote because they’re the most vulnerable in our society.[acorn-y?]</b></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; color: rgb(58, 67, 78); font-family: bagatela, serif; font-size: 19.7354px; background-color: rgb(239, 243, 247);">BANNON: K. We're going to have you on to go through actually the presentation.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; color: rgb(58, 67, 78); font-family: bagatela, serif; font-size: 19.7354px; background-color: rgb(239, 243, 247);">...</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; color: rgb(58, 67, 78); font-family: bagatela, serif; font-size: 19.7354px; background-color: rgb(239, 243, 247);">We need the army of the awakened to get this information that Cleta and her team puts out all over the country.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; color: rgb(58, 67, 78); font-family: bagatela, serif; font-size: 19.7354px; background-color: rgb(239, 243, 247);">...</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; color: rgb(58, 67, 78); font-family: bagatela, serif; font-size: 19.7354px; background-color: rgb(239, 243, 247);"><b>BANNON: Democrats, if they can't steal, they can't win. Let me just be blunt.</b></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; color: rgb(58, 67, 78); font-family: bagatela, serif; font-size: 19.7354px; background-color: rgb(239, 243, 247);">MITCHELL: That's right.</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; color: rgb(58, 67, 78); font-family: bagatela, serif; font-size: 19.7354px; background-color: rgb(239, 243, 247);">BANNON: They can't steal, they can't win. They know it. That's why they're so upset about<b> MAGA getting to the bottom of this.</b></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; color: rgb(58, 67, 78); font-family: bagatela, serif; font-size: 19.7354px; background-color: rgb(239, 243, 247);">...</p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px 0px 1.5em; color: rgb(58, 67, 78); font-family: bagatela, serif; font-size: 19.7354px; background-color: rgb(239, 243, 247);">MITCHELL: Let me tell you what, Steve. <b>It is a real serious problem what's going on with this vote by mail. This avalanche of mail voting. I call it unsupervised voting.</b></p><p style="box-sizing: border-box; margin: 0px; color: rgb(58, 67, 78); font-family: bagatela, serif; font-size: 19.7354px;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">It's happening in Florida, where in Florida they have sent the wrong ballots, they sent out tens of thousands of ballots that have been voted and come back into Broward county, Palm Beach county, Orange county – which is Orlando. And they have the wrong races or they don't have the school board races. And it's happening right now and it's all because of this bad voting.</span></p></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
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</div><div>no lnx</div><div> Republican National Committee has been relying on a stable of the party’s most prolific spreaders of false stolen-election theories to pilot a sweeping “election integrity” operation to recruit and coach thousands of poll workers in eight battleground states, according to new recordings of organizing summits held this spring in Florida and Pennsylvania obtained by POLITICO.</div><div>
</div><div>On the tapes, RNC National Election Integrity Director Josh Findlay repeatedly characterizes the committee’s role as supporting in-state coalitions — delivering staff, organization and “muscle” in key states to the person they identify as the quarterback of the effort to create a permanent workforce: Conservative elections attorney Cleta Mitchell, who was a central figure in former President Donald Trump’s legal strategy to overturn the 2020 election.</div><div>
</div><div>“Cleta Mitchell, she’s like the best election and election law expert out there. We’re not going to tell her what to do,” Findlay told a March 31 Pennsylvania session organized by Mitchell.</div><div>
</div><div>Publicly, the RNC has insisted its goal is to ensure there are enough trained poll workers to protect the electoral process and ensure partisan parity at polling centers. The recordings, however, indicated that the RNC is relying heavily on people who have spread false or unproven claims of irregularities and conspiracies. The recordings feature Findlay speaking at a number of Mitchell’s “Election Integrity Network” summits, which her group has hosted in battleground states including Arizona, Florida, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. The RNC is just “part of the team,” he told a Florida summit the same month.</div><div>
</div><div><b>While Republicans have said the aim of their “election integrity” effort is to ensure there are well-trained poll workers during the next election, the recordings also feature Mitchell speaking openly about the need to challenge efforts by nonprofit groups aligned with Democrats to create a “new American majority” of young voters, people of color and unmarried women.</b></div><div>
</div><div>“It’s a place the left sees as a great target of opportunity, and we have to make sure that doesn’t happen,” she said, referring to Democratic efforts to register voters from traditionally underrepresented voting blocs.</div><div>
</div><div>Mitchell was on Trump’s post-election phone call directing a Georgia elections official to “find” him 11,700 votes after losing the state, and is she among those currently under subpoena in a criminal investigation by the Fulton County district attorney. Days after the 2020 election, she was exploring ways to keep Trump in power via a slate of fake electors from several battleground states. White House call logs show she is also among a handful of individuals with whom Trump spoke on Jan. 6, 2021, the day the Capitol was attacked, and she is suing to block the House Jan. 6 committee from obtaining her full phone records.</div><div>
</div><div><b>Mitchell, in a response to POLITICO, said her comments about the “new American majority” were referring to an executive order by the Biden administration directing federal agencies to help citizens register to vote and to educate them on how to do so. The effort amounts to turning “every federal agency into a Democratic turnout machine — using our tax dollars in the process,” said Mitchell.</b></div><div>
</div><div>[Cleta Mitchell testifies.</div><div>Cleta Mitchell was on former President Donald Trump’s post-election phone call directing a Georgia elections official to “find” him 11,700 votes after losing the state. | Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP Photo]</div><div>
</div><div>The RNC says its poll watching and working program has been in place for recent primary elections in Georgia and Texas, where “turnout has risen, reported issues have been resolved and elections have run smoothly,” said RNC spokesperson Gates McGavick.</div><div>
</div><div>“The RNC works with other groups who have an interest in promoting election integrity, but the party’s efforts are independent from any outside organization,” said McGavick. “Fearmongering stories like this undermine confidence in elections and unfairly smear Americans who are simply getting involved in the civic process,” he said.</div><div>
</div><div>The RNC, in its email response, said Democrats also have a major Election Day operation through their national party and <b>noted that the Democratic National Committee’s website features a webinar on how to become a poll worker. The RNC also disputes that it trains poll workers</b>.<span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> It calls sessions in which statewide “election integrity” directors coach recruits on how to challenge votes and voting processes “workshops,” and all poll workers must attend separate trainings by county clerks.</span></div><div>
</div><div> [MOST READ</div><div>Kansas voters block effort to strip abortion protections from state constitution</div><div>Roe jolts the midterms — 5 takeaways from a key primary night</div><div>Indiana GOP Rep. Walorski, three others die in auto accident</div><div>Trump made 42 endorsements in recent primaries. Here’s who won — and who we’re still waiting on.</div><div>Matt Gaetz and the R word: Florida’s Democratic primary takes bitter detour]</div><div>
</div><div><b>Yet the DNC’s “voter protection” program is different because it focuses on expanding voting access, including through more locations and through mail-in voting. The webinar does not train poll workers, rather informs them how to apply, and the DNC says it does not have a national initiative to train poll workers. [so projection]</b></div><div>
</div><div>‘Number one goal’</div><div>
</div><div>RNC chair Ronna McDaniel has walked a fine line in calling for robust election security measures in response to Trump’s unproven claims of voting irregularities in the 2020 election, while avoiding fully embracing more sensational allegations there was widespread fraud and the election was “stolen” from him.</div><div>
</div><div>The approach around placing partisan poll workers is similar: steering clear of any public statements expressly supporting the “Stop the Steal” wing of the party while collaborating with some of its leading advocates around what the RNC considers, according to minutes of a spring training meeting in Memphis provided by Documented, its “number one goal” of building a permanent army of 15,000 GOP poll workers.</div><div>
</div><div><b>In workshops hosted by the RNC, GOP activists behind the party’s “election integrity” drive have primarily emphasized rooting out voting fraud — including “ballot stuffing” through the mail for which no evidence exists — as their key goal.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">The recordings suggest the goals are broader. At an April 5 Arizona summit, Mitchell spoke mostly about an emerging “new American majority” of people of color, young people and unmarried women that could make conservatives “obsolete.” Her private comments are significant because Democrats have long insisted it is these fears of displacement — and not legitimate election administration concerns — behind the GOP drive to tighten access to voting for certain groups, including through mail.</span></div><div>
</div><div>POLITICO obtained the recordings from Documented, a non-partisan investigative watchdog that says it believes “corporations and wealthy donors have far too much power and influence” and that “democracy itself is under attack.”<b> Documented got the tapes from attendees.</b></div><div>
</div><div>Other major summit partners include conservative grassroots organizations Heritage Action for America and Tea Party Patriots co-founder Jenny Beth Martin, who became part of Trump’s legal team in Georgia, where there is a criminal investigation into Trump and his top legal advisers. Toni Shuppe, who led a far-right effort to “audit the vote” in search of fraud in Pennsylvania, is leading that state’s coalition. <b>In Arizona, Gina Swoboda, a former Trump campaign official who runs the Voter Reference Foundation</b>, is heading the effort. Her group has continued to spread claims about voting discrepancies and published millions of voters’ names, birthdates and addresses.</div><div>
</div><div><b>None of these coalition partners responded to requests for comment.</b></div><div>
</div><div>The recordings feature keynote speakers continuing to push Trump’s false election claims.</div><div>
</div><div>“They [Democrats] know they can’t win unless they cheat,” Jim DeMint, a former Republican senator who chairs the Conservative Partnership Institute, the activist group that houses Mitchell’s initiative, said at the Florida gathering.</div><div>
</div><div>POLITICO previously documented the RNC’s efforts to build “an army” of poll workers prepared to challenge elections clerks in primarily Democrat-dominated precincts in Michigan and keep them in constant contact with roving party attorneys. In its email response, the RNC also said its staff training and recruitment of volunteers focuses on the “need to comply with federal and state laws protecting voting rights” and any individual who “does not follow the law will be promptly dismissed.”</div><div>
</div><div>‘It’s going to be an army’: Tapes reveal GOP plan to contest elections</div><div>BY HEIDI PRZYBYLA</div><div>
</div><div>Shipping volunteers</div><div>Findlay, in his summit appearances, repeatedly makes clear Mitchell and in-state coalition leaders are the braintrust of that effort. “When we started this (election integrity) department, we said, ‘Well, what can we do? Cleta knows more about election integrity than anybody in the country … What can we do to participate,’” he said in Florida on March 25.</div><div>
</div><div>Findlay was referencing Mitchell’s activities around the 2021 Virginia gubernatorial race, which saw thousands of Trump loyalists enlist as poll watchers and which the RNC considers a model for upcoming elections. He’s made similar remarks in Pennsylvania and other states about the RNC taking its lead from Mitchell.</div><div>
</div><div>“We can recruit. We can train, <b>we can ship volunteers,”</b> he said in Florida.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In Pennsylvania, the statewide coalition director is Shuppe, who has also promoted QAnon conspiracies that the online furniture retailer Wayfair was selling trafficked children on its website and Pizzagate, an unfounded theory that prominent Democrats were running a pedophile ring</span>.</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Another speaker at a March 31 Pennsylvania summit was CPI’s Ned Jones, who during his remarks floated conspiracies about “rogue” postal service workers tampering with mail-in ballots. Kerri Toloczko, who is atop the Florida coalition, suggested during the same gathering that Wisconsin service union workers may have been involved in casting votes for nursing home residents with dementia</span>.</div><div>
</div><div>Toloczko did not respond to a request for comment.</div><div>
</div><div>A growing force</div><div>
</div><div>The summits, organized by Mitchell’s “Election Integrity Network,” are largely kick-off events. They are followed by regular calls, meetings, and other organizing efforts involving several grassroots conservative groups.</div><div>
</div><div>CPI is a conservative think tank funded in part by Trump’s political action committee and run by DeMint and Mark Meadows, Trump’s former chief of staff. In its annual report, CPI states that it is aiming to create “permanent election integrity coalitions” in eight target states. “<b>Cleta, her full time job at CPI is to do nothing but this,” Meadows told a Georgia summit in February.</b></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">A former associate general counsel for the Trump campaign, Findlay has also been caught up in investigations around the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol. In late July, the Washington Post reported Findlay is among those for whom the Department of Justice has issued subpoenas seeking any communications regarding a scheme for GOP state lawmakers to overturn the will of the voters by submitting slates of alternate electors.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>“They bring democracy to your doorstep. I wanna pause right here. We don’t live in a democracy. ... We live in a constitutional republic.”</b></div><div>
</div><div> Cleta Mitchell, conservative elections attorney</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">Texts the Jan. 6 committee obtained from Meadows show lawmakers referencing meetings at CPI in the post-2020 election period. Two days after the Nov. 3, 2020, election, it was Mitchell who contacted Trump lawyer John Eastman, the legal mastermind of Trump’s failed strategy, and encouraged him to engineer a legal argument to challenge electoral vote certification in Congress.</span></div><div>
</div><div>A transcript shows Mitchell played a major role in a conversation in which Trump pressured Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to find him additional votes. Amid the controversy, Mitchell resigned from her position as a partner with the law firm Foley & Lardner and landed at CPI shortly thereafter.</div><div>
</div><div>CPI is a growing force: According to its annual report, the group raised $19.7 million in 2021, which includes a $1 million grant from Trump’s Save America PAC, which raised millions by fanning Trump’s false claims of election fraud.</div><div>
</div><div>Not ‘a democracy’</div><div>
</div><div>While training sessions previously published by POLITICO show Republican recruits overwhelmingly concerned about election fraud, Mitchell’s remarks in Arizona focused primarily on what many Democrats have long insisted is the real motive behind the entire GOP effort: targeting certain groups.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">She made extended remarks about Democrats’ goal, since former Rev. Jesse Jackson’s “Rainbow Push” coalition of the 1980s, to register more people in minority communities to vote and create a new American majority of young people, people of color and unmarried women. “There was a book ‘Brown Is the New White’ talking about changing demographics in America was going to render conservatives obsolete,” she said.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“That is their goal,” she said of Democrats and outside groups aligned with them like unions. “They believe you can expand access to democracy by underrepresented populations.” Mitchell said they “target the most vulnerable people of our society,” citing the story of an allegedly elderly woman with dementia who allegedly obtained a voter registration form at a health clinic.</span></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“You see it all over,” she said, as she decried the availability of information on voter registration at public venues like health clinics and universities. “We see people who are in need, who are hurting, who need help,” she said, referring to elderly, disabled, low-income Americans and students in need of financial aid receiving “education” on how to vote from outside groups like the American Civil Liberties Union and the availability of voter registration information on government websites or venues serving the needy.</span></div><div>
</div><div>In her response to POLITICO, Mitchell said: “I showed the attendees the language taken from left-wing sources,” adding that President Joe Biden and “left-wing” groups are conspiring to use federal resources to “<b>register and turn out the vote of the most vulnerable people in our society and pressure them to vote for Democrats.”</b></div><div>
</div><div>“That sort of enterprise should be paid for by candidates or political parties,” Mitchell said, without offering evidence any agency is pressuring individuals to vote for a particular party by providing them with registration materials.</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">In the tapes, Mitchell also disparaged the Democrats’ recent warnings about threats to democracy.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">“They bring democracy to your doorstep. I wanna pause right here. We don’t live in a democracy,” Mitchell said, to a round of applause from the crowd. “But to the left, everything is about democracy, the democracy fund, the democracy this, the democracy that.”</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">“We live in a constitutional republic,” she said. [real am = wht xian?]</span></div><div>
</div><div>FILED UNDER: GOP, ELECTIONS, RNC, REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE,</div></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">=</font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://documented.net/investigations/recordings-reveal-whats-really-going-on-cleta-mitchell-election-integrity-network">
</a></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><a href="https://documented.net/investigations/recordings-reveal-whats-really-going-on-cleta-mitchell-election-integrity-network">https://documented.net/investigations/recordings-reveal-whats-really-going-on-cleta-mitchell-election-integrity-network</a></font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman">
</font></font></font></font></font></font></div><div><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman"><font size="4" face="Times New Roman" style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">a </font></font></font></font></font></font><span style="color: rgb(15, 24, 39); font-family: Grotesk-Text-Regular; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.02em;"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">$19.7 million DC-based organization led by former Trump officials who worked to overturn the 2020 election is "recruiting election conspiracists into an organized cavalry of activists monitoring elections</span>,"</span><span style="color: rgb(15, 24, 39); font-family: Grotesk-Text-Regular; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.02em;"> </span><span style="color: rgb(15, 24, 39); font-family: Grotesk-Text-Regular; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.02em; border-style: solid; border-color: currentcolor; border-image: initial; box-sizing: inherit; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow);">according</span><span style="color: rgb(15, 24, 39); font-family: Grotesk-Text-Regular; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.02em;"> </span><span style="color: rgb(15, 24, 39); font-family: Grotesk-Text-Regular; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.02em;">to the</span><span style="color: rgb(15, 24, 39); font-family: Grotesk-Text-Regular; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.02em;"> </span><span style="color: rgb(15, 24, 39); font-family: Grotesk-Text-Regular; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.02em; border: 0px solid currentcolor; box-sizing: inherit; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); margin-bottom: 0px;"><b>New York Times.</b></span></div><div><em style="color: rgb(15, 24, 39); font-family: Grotesk-Text-Regular; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.02em; border: 0px solid currentcolor; box-sizing: inherit; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); margin-bottom: 0px;">
</em></div><div><p style="border: 0px solid currentcolor; box-sizing: inherit; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); margin-top: var(--wysiwyg-desktop-space); margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: var(--wysiwyg-desktop-space); margin-left: 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.02em; line-height: 1.4em; font-family: Grotesk-Text-Regular; color: rgb(15, 24, 39);">Documented has obtained hours of audio and other materials outlining this effort.</p><p style="border: 0px solid currentcolor; box-sizing: inherit; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); margin-top: var(--wysiwyg-desktop-space); margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: var(--wysiwyg-desktop-space); margin-left: 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.02em; line-height: 1.4em; font-family: Grotesk-Text-Regular; color: rgb(15, 24, 39);">
</p><p style="border: 0px solid currentcolor; box-sizing: inherit; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); margin-top: var(--wysiwyg-desktop-space); margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: var(--wysiwyg-desktop-space); margin-left: 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.02em; line-height: 1.4em; font-family: Grotesk-Text-Regular; color: rgb(15, 24, 39);"><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 153, 0);">The <span style="border-style: solid; border-color: currentcolor; border-image: initial; box-sizing: inherit; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow);"><b>Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI</b>)</span> is working to build what it calls a “permanent election infrastructure” in eight swing states staffed with people fully committed to election conspiracies. The project is led by Cleta Mitchell, the Trump lawyer who played a key role in plotting to overturn the 2020 election.</span></p><p style="border: 0px solid currentcolor; box-sizing: inherit; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); margin-top: var(--wysiwyg-desktop-space); margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: var(--wysiwyg-desktop-space); margin-left: 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.02em; line-height: 1.4em; font-family: Grotesk-Text-Regular; color: rgb(15, 24, 39);"><b>The goal is to build in-state coalitions focused on recruiting election conspiracy theorists to interrogate local election offices and to become poll workers and watchers. Ultimately, if CPI and its allies are successful, then those who falsely believe that the 2020 election was stolen could be in a position of real power and authority over future elections. The risk is that conspiracy theorists who see fraud around every corner are going to disrupt voting and the administration of elections.</b></p><p style="border: 0px solid currentcolor; box-sizing: inherit; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); margin-top: var(--wysiwyg-desktop-space); margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: var(--wysiwyg-desktop-space); margin-left: 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.02em; line-height: 1.4em; font-family: Grotesk-Text-Regular; color: rgb(15, 24, 39);">
</p><p style="border: 0px solid currentcolor; box-sizing: inherit; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); margin-top: var(--wysiwyg-desktop-space); margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: var(--wysiwyg-desktop-space); margin-left: 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.02em; line-height: 1.4em; font-family: Grotesk-Text-Regular; color: rgb(15, 24, 39);"><b>CPI is working closely with the Republican National Committee (RNC</b>) in the effort. <span style="border-style: solid; border-color: currentcolor; border-image: initial; box-sizing: inherit; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow);">As described by</span> <em style="border: 0px solid currentcolor; box-sizing: inherit; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); margin-bottom: 0px;"><span style="border-style: solid; border-color: currentcolor; border-image: initial; box-sizing: inherit; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow);">POLITICO</span></em>, the collaboration means that the RNC "has been relying on a stable of the party’s most prolific spreaders of false stolen-election theories to pilot a sweeping 'election integrity' operation to recruit and coach thousands of poll workers in eight battleground states."</p><p style="border: 0px solid currentcolor; box-sizing: inherit; --tw-translate-x:0; --tw-translate-y:0; --tw-rotate:0; --tw-skew-x:0; --tw-skew-y:0; --tw-scale-x:1; --tw-scale-y:1; --tw-transform:translateX(var(--tw-translate-x)) translateY(var(--tw-translate-y)) rotate(var(--tw-rotate)) skewX(var(--tw-skew-x)) skewY(var(--tw-skew-y)) scaleX(var(--tw-scale-x)) scaleY(var(--tw-scale-y)); --tw-ring-offset-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow:0 0 #0000; --tw-blur:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-brightness:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-contrast:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-grayscale:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-hue-rotate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-invert:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-saturate:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-sepia:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-drop-shadow:var(--tw-empty, ); --tw-filter:var(--tw-blur) var(--tw-brightness) var(--tw-contrast) var(--tw-grayscale) var(--tw-hue-rotate) var(--tw-invert) var(--tw-saturate) var(--tw-sepia) var(--tw-drop-shadow); margin-top: var(--wysiwyg-desktop-space); margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: var(--wysiwyg-desktop-space); margin-left: 0px; padding: 0px; font-size: 1.25rem; letter-spacing: 0.02em; line-height: 1.4em; font-family: Grotesk-Text-Regular; color: rgb(15, 24, 39);">As Mark Meadows recently said of the project, "this fight is not just about what happened in 2020. This fight is about every future election, whether it is at a state level or a federal level or the highest office in the land."[aud]</p></div><div><div>
</div><div>no lnx aud</div><div>cPI’s Election Integrity Network</div><div>
</div><div><b>CPI, which raised $19.7 million in 2021, is led by former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and was seeded with a $1 million donation from former President Trump’s PAC.</b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 51);">CPI has launched a number of projects led by former Trump administration officials and allies, including <b>Stephen Miller’s America First Legal Foundation and Russ Vought’s Center for Renewing America, </b>and is staffed with individuals who played a key role in laying the groundwork for the January 6 insurrection.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>CPI’s “Election Integrity Network” project is led by Cleta Mitchell, </b>the veteran lawyer who supported Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, including joining the infamous call when the then-President urged Georgia’s Secretary of State to “find” 11,700 votes. Mitchell was also responsible for contacting John Eastman and asking him to engineer a legal argument to challenge electoral certification in Congress. Amidst the controversy, in January 2021 Mitchell abruptly resigned from her longtime role as a partner with the law firm Foley and Lardner and joined CPI.</div><div>
</div><div>Mitchell played a key role in promoting false claims of election fraud, and is now channeling that misplaced anger into mobilizing conspiracy-minded MAGA activists to enter the election administration infrastructure.</div><div><b>
</b></div><div><b>“The vision I have for everyone is thousands of little brush fires all over the state. They can't put them all out, folks.”</b></div><div>
</div><div>CAROL DAVIS, <b>FREEDOMWORKS</b></div><div>“Permanent Election Integrity Coalitions”</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">In 2022, CPI held summits in Georgia, Arizona, Florida, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Michigan, North Carolina, and Wisconsin. <b>These are not one-day summits to simply rile up the base and build email lists—these are kick-off events to launch in-state election integrity coalitions, and are followed by regular calls, meetings, and other organizing efforts.</b> The summits and in-state coalitions include the participation of other election denialist groups like Tea Party Patriots, Heritage Action, and Turning Point USA.</span></div><div>
</div><div>“The goal of what we're trying to do at this meeting today is to build a permanent election integrity infrastructure here in the state of Pennsylvania, and that infrastructure includes a statewide coalition,” said <b>Tea Party Patriots’ Jenny Beth Martin</b> at the Pennsylvania summit.</div><div>
</div><div>“The vision I have for everyone is thousands of little brush fires all over the state,” said Carol Davis of FreedomWorks during the Pennsylvania summit. “They can't put them all out, folks.”</div><div>
</div><div>“Become a Presence in the Local Election Office"</div><div>Members of the CPI-led coalitions are encouraged “to become a presence in the local election office.”<b> Activists are directed to regularly show up to elections offices in groups of two to ask questions, to attend election board meetings, to get involved with cleaning voter rolls, to file searching FOIA requests, and to scrutinize vote-by-mail procedures.</b></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">These activities can contribute to an atmosphere of hostility that drives dedicated election workers out of public service.</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>A test drive of CPI’s strategy in the Virginia governor’s race in 2021 highlighted how these activities—carried out by people who believe in the myth of widespread fraud—led clerks to feel as if they were being accused of malfeasance simply for doing their job.</b></div><div>
</div><div><b>The CPI-led coalition in Virginia claims to have trained 4,500 poll watchers and election workers and organized 18 local task forces, and to have covered 85% of polling locations on Election Day 2021 and in the 45 days of early voting that led up to it.</b></div><div>
</div><div>At CPI summits, Mitchell holds up Virginia, and Fairfax County in particular, as a model for coalitions in other states. But as the New York Times reported:</div><div>
</div><div>"In Fairfax, a Democratic bastion outside Washington, about three dozen activists associated with the coalition and the local Republican Party rotated through election offices, combing through voter registration applications, undeliverable mail and other materials. <b>Christine Brim, the task force’s leader, appeared in person or emailed staff nearly every day, according to Scott Konopasek, the registrar at the time. The operation ate up county workers’ time with dozens of information requests, as well as informal interrogations, Mr. Konopasek said.</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">'Everything they saw that they didn’t understand was fraud in their minds and that’s how they would frame the questions,' he said. 'It was always accusatory.'"</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>The Fairfax County election registrar resigned in large part because coalition members were making his job so difficult. In states like Arizona, where CPI has more recently created a coalition, accusations and harassment are also causing election professionals to leave their jobs.</b></div><div>
</div><div>Recruiting Poll Workers and Poll Watchers</div><div>
</div><div>A primary goal of the CPI-led coalitions is to recruit poll workers and watchers—with an emphasis on poll workers, because they have more authority. As a Heritage Action representative said at CPI’s Florida summit, poll workers can act as the “referee on the field” policing voters:</div><div>
</div><div>"We really do need poll workers. We need watchers, we need both. But the way I like to look at it is if you're a poll worker and you're the one handling, you know, the situation. I like to think of it as you know, you're the referee on the field rather than being someone sitting on the stands watching conservatives cry 'foul, foul.'"</div><div>
</div><div><b>A former Trump campaign lawyer, Linda Kerns</b>, similarly emphasized at a CPI summit in Pennsylvania that “we do have to put poll watchers in, but election board workers are the most important and high value person that we can have in the polling place”:</div><div>
</div><div>"I’m going to repeat because its so important: election board workers they are, they're actually employees of the county for the day. They are more important, or they're higher value than poll watchers because election board workers actually sit at the election table. They're part of the process. And the poll watchers are in there, but they can only observe. So in Philadelphia, sometimes what most of the time, we can't find election board workers because we can't find Republicans in a lot of the precincts. We do have to put poll watchers in, but election board workers are the most important and high value person that we can have in the polling place."</div><div>
</div><div><b>Kerns also described how poll workers and poll watchers could support litigation:</b></div><div>
</div><div>"OK, so all we really have to say about poll watchers and election board workers is, and as a lawyer, I cannot do anything unless I have poll watchers and election workers in the polling place. If I'm an election court in Philadelphia and there are no Republicans in polling places or people in polling places telling me what's going on, I have nothing to bring to the judge."</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>FOIAs for Phantom Voters</div><div>
</div><div><b>CPI sessions have been a clearinghouse for conspiracy theories about “leftwing entities” allegedly colluding with election officials to facilitate fraud. In addition to conspiracies about “Zuckerbucks”</b>—the theory that Facebook’s Mark Zuckerburg somehow corrupted the 2020 election by supporting groups that supported local election authorities during the pandemic—CPI officials have floated wild theories about a range of established nonpartisan groups that allegedly are involved with election fraud.</div><div>
</div><div>For example, CPI’s Ned Jones has posited that so-called “phantom voters” were somehow inserted into Pennsylvania’s voter record by a nonpartisan voter registration organization, the Center for Voter Information. At CPI’s Pennsylvania summit, he said:</div><div>
</div><div><b>“Number one is the Center for Voter Information. </b>What they do is they do mass mailings to what they claim are commercially available lists in the spring, trying to sign up new voters. And in the fall, during election time, they sent out absentee ballot applications that are partially filled out.<b> <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">Now we've learned they had a special arrangement with the Postal Service.</span></b><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"> And I'll talk more about them in the next panel. But when their mailings are undeliverable, that is no one's at the address address that it's sent to. They don't get that mail back. What they get is a list from the Postal Service of undeliverable mail, and that's mailed to a voter who is no longer at their address. And we believe that somehow they use that information to create the phantom voters that we're all very familiar with right now</span>.”</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div>Coalition members are encouraged to investigate these conspiracy theories in their state and local election offices. One CPI document obtained by Documented </div></div><div><div>instructs state coalition members to “Document the relationship between the state and local election offices and the leftwing entities that are intent upon skewing and manipulating the 2022 elections....from the INSIDE.... by obtaining and documenting where these leftist entities are, and what they are doing with local and state election offices and officials.”</div><div>
</div><div>CPI instructs coalition member to question elections officials, file open records requests, attend public meetings, and review meeting minutes in order “to learn if election offices in your state have had contact with and/or applied for participation with the leftist groups” identified by CPI, and to then share research findings with Jones and CPI.</div><div>
</div><div>“We need citizen eyes on every election office!,” the CPI document states.</div><div>
</div><div>RNC Election Integrity Program and CPI</div><div>
</div><div>CPI is working closely with the RNC in these efforts. RNC officials have been speakers at several CPI summits, and RNC state election integrity directors are taking part in state-wide election integrity efforts spearheaded by CPI.</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">The RNC created a permanent election integrity program in early 2021, following Trump’s false claims of fraud in the 2020 election. The RNC's national election integrity director is Josh Findlay, who was associate general counsel for the 2020 Trump campaign, and claims to have "run the President's national war room out of the White House." The RNC has hired state election integrity directors in 16 key states.</span></div><div>
</div><div>Findlay has addressed multiple CPI summits, where he characterizes the RNC's election integrity efforts as focused on supporting CPI, helping with organization and staffing, and deferring to Cleta Mitchell—which is notable, given Mitchell’s role in pushing the big lie and in seeking to overturn the 2020 election.</div><div>
</div><div><b>At CPI’s Florida summit, Findlay described how the RNC engaged in the 2021 Virginia elections by taking its lead from Cleta Mitchell and others in the CPI-led coalition</b>:</div><div>
</div><div>"When we got on the ground in Virginia, we said "Cleta, <span style="background-color: rgb(255, 102, 0);">Lynn [<b>Taylor, of the Virginia Institute for Public Policy</b>]</span>, what can we do?" They were already doing trainings, they'd hit the ground running. Our state director's first day was the day of the summit in Virginia and they said, Well, look, we got a lot of materials done, but we've got to shift massive amounts of people for 45 days of early voting. We said, "well, your poll workers and poll watchers have gotta get credentials through the party. We're good at providing muscle. Let's contribute we'll help out with that." And we saw the great things that happened in Virginia, and we're just really excited to be part of that."</div><div>
</div><div>At CPI’s Pennsylvania summit, Findlay similarly described how the RNC supported the CPI-led Virginia coalition by helping to organize poll watcher shifts: “Cleta Mitchell, she's like the best election and election law expert out here. We're not going to tell her what to do.”</div><div>
</div><div>The RNC’s election integrity program is also playing a formal role in these CPI-led coalitions. In Pennsylvania, for example, the RNC election integrity state director, Andrea Raffel, worked directly with Cleta Mitchell to plan the summit, presented at the event, and is helping to lead the statewide coalition.</div><div>
</div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“Lying Is Their Native Language”</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);"><b>CPI president Jim DeMint </b>presented the goals of the organization’s election effort in stark terms. “Everything we love and care about this country goes down the drain if the election system continues the way it is,” he said at a CPI election integrity summit in Arizona.</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">DeMint also brushed off accusations that CPI was helping to promote the “big lie” about the 2020 election being stolen, declaring instead that "climate change was a lie" and that "much of what they told us about covid was a lie:”</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">
</span></div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">“And what we're doing today is what the left says is ‘the big lie.’ You're involved with the big lie. We know who lies. We know that Hunter's laptop was a lie. We know that climate change was a lie. We know much of what they told us about covid was a lie. We know telling us the borders are secure is a lie . . . Lying is their native language."</span></div><div>
</div><div><b>DeMint also declared that Democrats “want to cheat” and that “they know that they can’t win unless they cheat:”</b></div><div>
</div><div><span style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 102);">"So we can't run a country, a free country, if people don't have any confidence in their elections, and that's where we are right now. And the only reason that they don't want you to ask questions is because they know they're lying. And they know that they can't win unless they cheat. I guarantee you.<b> Anybody who doesn't want a photo I.D. is not worried about voter suppression. They want to cheat.</b> We need to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat.</span>”</div><div>
</div><div>More recordings from the CPI-organized events are on file with Documented. If you are a reporter and would like to discuss, get in touch.</div></div><div>
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