election poll worker offic

tARGET RNC TRUE THE VOTE PRIMARY 5 24

merri

SEE RETALIATE 3

HARMEET DHILLON THREAT CHARGES 7 26 ILLEGAL VOTER

added to civil society

see local takeover poll watcher

NOTE ELECTION DENIER SEEDED INTO SYSTEM

see Ruby Freeman ga

4 23 start to include NGO FDN support of voting/democracy

death threATS

FOIA/SLAPP/SWAT?

see big lie gt replacement theory GRT

see election integrity BS xian? ziklag? infiltration

see trump coup

see concede peAceful transfer norms

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aha let: push/ pull threats plus infiltration, plus gop red state legis voter suppress bills strip power/overturn #results don't like

===

NOTE ELECTION DENIER SEEDED INTO SYSTEM

A loyal supporter of President Donald Trump has been convicted on nine counts of election fraud, the *San Francisco Chronicle* reported Monday.

Gaea Powell, a Moms for Liberty activist, ran for a county clerk-recorder spot in a small California town, promising that she could improve "election integrity." As the Chronicle reported, "it turns out this conservative candidate wasn’t following election laws herself."

A county jury found Powell guilty of nine felony counts, including lying about her residence, unlawfully registering to vote and fraudulently voting.

It comes from both the 2022 and 2024 elections, when Powell ran for mayor of Arroyo Grande. She claims that she didn't know or attempt to commit fraud.

“I respect the jury’s role. But I am deeply disappointed by today’s verdict,” Powell’s statement said. “I have maintained from the beginning, and I maintain today, that I did not knowingly deceive anyone and did not act with fraudulent intent.”

Powell represented herself in court rather than hire a lawyer. She claimed that there was evidence that could have vindicated her, but that it was "excluded during the trial," the report said.

She claims she'll appeal.

As the report explained, it isn't the first time a conservative candidate who pledged to create strict voting laws has also been found guilty of breaking existing laws.

Trump supporter Tina Peters, a former Colorado clerk, tampered with voting machines and then claimed fraud in the 2020 election. She was commended by President Donald Trump.

Another is Chad Bianco from Riverside County, who was the sheriff at the time and was running for governor when he claimed voter fraud was a huge problem. He then seized hundreds of thousands of ballots. The case went all the way to the California Supreme Court, which ultimately ruled he broke the law.

The justices even went so far as to write that Bianco exposed the ballots to “alteration or tampering” when he illegally seized them.

The heavily Republican senior community in Florida, The Villages, had a small group of four residents caught voting twice in 2020. They voted in Florida in person and in a previous state by absentee ballot.

The Villages conspiracy made the cases politically notable because reports of their activity came as Trump claimed that Democrats had committed widespread fraud to steal the 2020 election.

In 2020, Republican Donald “Kirk” Hartle voted twice in Nevada: once for himself and again under his late wife's ballot.

A 64-year-old Republican woman even went so far as to use the "everybody does it," excuse when she cast a ballot in her deceased mother’s name in 2020. Reporting said she did so because she believed Democrats were committing widespread fraud.

-=-=

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TRUMP SENDS FEDS TO 3 DEM CITY PRIMARY DETROIT MICH

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AN 7 26

On Tuesday, NBC News confirmed that the Justice Department has sent threatening letters to election officials spanning every state and Washington, D.C., asserting that they could “face criminal prosecution over noncitizen voting.” According to NBC, the letters are the latest move in President Donald Trump’s effort to promote his false claims of widespread noncitizen voting and “assert more federal control over state elections.”

As NBC explains, “The letters, signed by Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon, who heads up the department’s Civil Rights Division, give states five days to explain how they will comply with federal voter eligibility laws and how they will maintain ‘clean voter lists.’” And as NBC notes, noncitizen voting is so rare it’s almost nonexistent, “but Trump and his administration have falsely portrayed it as a widespread issue.”

The DOJ letters assert that state election officials “could be criminally prosecuted for aiding and abetting” any noncitizen voting. They also emphasize that any election officer who knowingly retains noncitizens on a voting registration list or who helps noncitizens receive and cast ballots in any way could be subject to criminal liability, and that “an intentional act that is aimed at diluting the votes of citizens could also constitute a violation.”

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

According to Utah Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, a Republican election official who received one of the letters, the threats amounted to “truly bizarre behavior.”

Posting on social media, she revealed, “Got another love letter this morning from the DOJ sprinkled throughout with threats of criminal prosecution. I’m sure I’m not the only chief election officer of a state who is being targeted for following state and federal laws by resisting DOJ’s demands for private voter data that have thus far been ruled illegal by at least a dozen courts. This is truly bizarre behavior by the federal agency that is supposed to be protecting civil rights.”

Per NBC, “While some states have complied with the administration’s demands that they hand over voter roll data, the Justice Department has sued 30 states and Washington, D.C., for resisting. So far, 11 different federal courts have dismissed the Justice Department’s efforts to seize voter rolls.”

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PC vouch 8 25

https://www.samharris.org/podcasts/making-sense-episodes/376-how-democracies-fail 1:07 is not full?

mayfair london uberrich shell corps own houses

putin dep mayor stole $ smuggled abroad w help of banksters in west;

jordan weaponization performative 53 min diresta sio

maricopa az election guy had to quit bc threat?

excerpt scholarship offered

https://samharris.substack.com/p/making-sense-429-the-new-world-order

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## Top Maricopa county official quits as election looms: 'All I do is play ...

Feb 19, 2024For Clint Hickman, an official who helped lead Arizona's largest country through some of the most difficult moments of the pandemic and the 2020 election, the current moment in American life feels like the right one to quit.

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https://www.alternet.org › top-arizona-election-official-resign

Top Arizona election official forced to resign as threats get 'worse ...

Feb 18, 2024Top Arizona election official forced to resign as threats get 'worse and worse': report Maricopa County Supervisor Clint Hickman, Image via AZ Family/Arizona News.

REF PPL WORLD

NEW YORK—The Trump administration and its radical right foot-soldiers in the federal government and in the states are undertaking a comprehensive scheme to undermine future state and federal elections, in effect rigging the rolls to keep themselves in power no matter what the voters decide.

So far, other than the report itself, by the Brennan Center for Law and Justice at New York University, there’s been little—or little-noticed—response.

The comprehensive scheme is detailed in a combination of a Trump executive order on March 25 and the notorious SAVE Act, a GOP voter repression law that would disenfranchise at least 21 million people, most of them women—the voters most likely to oppose the Trump-right-wing-corporate agenda.

Detailed and footnoted protests were aired by the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) to the GOP-run House Administration Committee and by the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights—whose members include the AFL-CIO—to the GOP-run Senate Rules and Administration Committee.

And states have gone to court to try to block Trump, the Brennan Center adds.

“A president has no right to rewrite the country’s election rules or regulate federal elections on his own,” the center’s report says.

“As a federal court recently put it, ‘The Constitution vests none of these powers in the president.’ In issuing the order, the president claimed extraordinary unilateral authority to regulate federal elections and usurp the powers of Congress, the states, and the (U.S.) Elections Administration Commission, an independent, bipartisan federal agency.”

Protecting U.S. elections, at all levels, from partisan manipulation, is now and has been for more than a century, important to workers, union, and non-union.

One, as AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler often points out, is that the GOP Trump regime views organized labor as a key roadblock to its partisan and repressive agenda. And the best way to crush labor is to crush workers’ right to vote.

And, second, and just as important, restricting who can vote, and who cannot, centralizes power in the hands not just of Trump but of the corporate interests that back him and who turn a blind eye—or worse–to repression both at the workplace and at the ballot box.

After all, paraphrasing the late UAW President Walter Reuther, what is won at the bargaining table can be taken away by the stroke of a pen.

The elements in the right wing’s coordinated attempt to entrench itself in power go far beyond what Trump tried in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election. Trump lost it to Democratic nominee Joe Biden, and knew it. But he tried to overturn the results in lawsuits and other intimidation in selected swing states—and went 0-for-62 in court cases.

When that failed, he turned to aiding and abetting the Jan. 6, 2021, Trumpite invasion, insurrection, and attempted coup d’etat at the U.S. Capitol.

But now the Trump right-wing playbook to undermine and rig coming elections is much more extensive and much more under the radar, the Brennan Center reports. It includes:

Attempting to rewrite election rules to burden voters and usurp control of election systems.

Targeting or threatening to target election officials and others who keep elections free and fair.

Federal officials, at the Justice Department, had an important role in countering disinformation and combating racial discrimination. This federal protection for fair elections may no longer exist.

Supporting people who undermine election administration by putting them on state and local elections boards.

Retreating from the federal role of protecting voters and the election process by defunding agencies Congress established to safeguard the vote and ensuring the Federal Elections Commission, already hobbled by a years-long deadlock, remains toothless.

Giving a “go” signal to future violence to overturn elections, by Trump’s pardons of the January 6 insurrectionists.

Leaves out one key tactic

The Brennan report leaves out one tactic of Trump, the MAGAites and the right-wing: Stacking state and local elections boards. An attempt occurred in Nevada, a swing state in 2020 and 2024. And after the four-member, evenly split Wayne County, Mich. (Detroit) elections board voted 3-1 to certify Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s margin there in 2020, Michigan MAGAites forced the Republican commissioner who voted for certification out of office.

“Why do we conclude this represents a concerted strategy? Among other things, President Trump tried to do this before,” the Brennan Center points out. “He was the first president to try to overturn the results of a presidential election and used federal power to do so.

“Institutions and key officials blocked him. These internal checks, however, are now gone, and many public officials will likely carry out the president’s will.

“This campaign to undermine elections runs afoul of the U.S. Constitution. Only Congress and the states can set election rules. The executive branch, especially the Department of Justice (DOJ), is charged with enforcing federal laws. But neither the president nor the DOJ has the authority to set rules governing elections or to supervise” state elections procedures.

Yet Trump is trying just that. And, as CREW and the Brennan Center point out, the misnamed SAVE Act, a key goal of the House’s ruling right-wing Republicans, would aid and abet that campaign. Other specifics include:

Attempting to impose a “Show Your Papers” requirement on voters.

Trump, in a March 25 executive order, and the GOP congressional majority, in the SAVE Act, say doing so would prevent “voter fraud,” which even Trump’s last Attorney General in his first term, Bill Barr, called non-existent. But “show your papers” mandates, using a citizenship document to even register to vote, “would undermine voting and disrupt election administration in multiple respects.”

Estimates are that the mandate, the SAVE Act, or both, would disenfranchise at least 21 million voters nationwide. Most of them would be women, whose names on their initial voter registrations are different from the name they now use.

Force the states to re-certify all their voting machines, buy new ones, or both. That would cost billions of dollars. It’s also one step removed from Trump’s demand for hand counts of all elections. The certification would be done by federally approved firms and methods, and only one has been OKd by the federal Elections Administration Commission, on July 7, 2025.

There are also bans on unauthorized access to voting machines and equipment. The result of violating them is to toss the machines—and the votes they count—out. Tina Peters, former county clerk in rural “red” Mesa County, Colo., is now serving a 9-year term in prison for allowing Trumpite election deniers access to her county’s machines after the 2020 balloting. She was convicted last year.

Retaliation against opponents of the right-wing’s voter rigging. The targets include state and local elections officials, non-partisan groups such as the League of Women Voters, civic groups that mobilize voters “and other individuals and entities that protect elections and the rule of law,” the Brennan Center reports.

That kind of retaliation could target both unions and their get-out-the-vote drives and groups such as the Poor People’s Campaign, which registers and mobilizes poor and low-wealth people—the very voters least likely to participate, but also the most likely to oppose the Trumpite, right-wing and corporate hegemony.

Reports likely targets

The Brennan Center reports likely targets for “law enforcement” type retaliation would include individual voters, election officials, “perceived political adversaries, and journalists.” The last two groups of targets have been GOP targets before: On Richard Nixon’s enemies list. Labor leaders—AFSCME President Jerry Wurf and UAW President Leonard Woodcock—were on it, too.

Trump’s FBI Director Kash Patel “stated ‘We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections–we’re going to come after you,’” the Brennan Center adds.

The Brennan Center reports three active task forces leading that retaliation: The Justice Department’s “Weaponization Working Group, the New Jersey U.S. Attorney’s Office Election Integrity Task Force, and the Washington, D.C., Attorney’s Office Special Unit.

Letting DOGE—Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency–access sensitive private and personal voter registration files, just as it did with other agencies, including the Labor Department and the National Labor Relations Board. And the threat isn’t only from DOGE’s misuse of the files. The Brennan Center adds that when DOGE grabbed the NLRB’s files, its security was so lax that foreign hackers immediately invaded them.

“The administration could abuse voter file access to claim fraud and erode public trust in elections,” the Brennan Center warns. “It could also pressure state officials to target groups of voters and carry out unwarranted voter purges. Any disclosure of sensitive personal information puts individuals and groups at risk of being intimidated or doxed. And mishandling voter file data could expose U.S. elections to political and foreign interference.”

Intimidating election officials. After what happened in 2020 to the two African-American women in Georgia at the hands of Trump consigliere Rudy Giuliani—one a ballot counter, the other her mother—local elections officials are scared and defecting in droves.

“Criminal investigations and prosecutions would impose a severe personal and financial toll on election officials or nonprofit employees for simply doing their jobs to help keep elections free and fair. But beyond that, the harms that stem from targeting the officials and civil society groups that make our elections work are manifold,” the Brennan Center report says.

“Even if the administration never charges any officials, the threat alone of criminal investigation or prosecution will likely exacerbate the exodus of election officials. In 2024 33% of local election officials knew at least one colleague who resigned at least in part due to fear for their safety, of increased threats, or of intimidation; 21% stated they were unlikely to continue serving in their role for the 2026 midterms. In 2025, 59% of officials reported fear of political interference in their ability to do their jobs. And 46% were very or somewhat concerned about potential politically motivated investigations of themselves and their families.”

One solution: Sue for damages. The Brennan Center reports “federal and state law prohibit anyone, including federal officials, from intimidating voters and those, like election officials or civic engagement organizations, who assist or encourage them to vote. And though voters rarely do so, they are able to sue DOJ officials under anti-intimidation law in federal court.”

“The Constitution establishes a system of checks and balances to ensure free and fair elections. The power to regulate elections lies in the hands of states and Congress. Courts and advocates complement this system to uphold the Constitution and federal law,” the Brennan Center declares.

“U.S. election infrastructure leaves no room for the president to insert himself. Yet that is exactly what he purports to do.”

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aN 1 024

An election clerk in San Antonio was allegedly assaulted late Thursday and the suspect, a voter, was arrested, officials said.

The suspect was arrested on suspicion of injury to an elderly person, a felony.

The incident is believed to be the first instance of reported violence against an election worker this fall. Early voting began Monday in Texas.

According to a sheriff’s report, the suspect, 63-year-old Jesse Lutzenberger, walked into the polling location on San Antonio’s west side, wearing a Make America Great Again hat in support of former President Donald Trump, which is considered electioneering and against the law in Texas. The poll worker, 69, asked Lutzenberger to remove the hat, which he did, officials said. Lutzenberger went on to cast his ballot.

While still inside the polling location, Lutzenberger put the hat back on as he walked toward the door. The poll worker approached him to tell him that was unacceptable and then began to escort him out as they were approaching the doors of the location.

Bexar County Sheriff Javier Salazar said a surveillance video showed Lutzenberger “throw an arm back toward the victim,” he said. “The victim seemed to push off of the suspect. At that point, the suspect then turned and threw several punches right at the face of the victim.”

Salazar urged residents to keep calm while voting.

“Nothing is worth going to jail for,” Salazar said.

Emergency medical personnel responded to the incident and treated the election worker. His injuries were not life-threatening, Salazar said. Bexar County Sheriff’s deputies said they were able to find Lutzenberger at a residence, where he identified himself as “I am the person you’re looking for.”

Lutzenberger was booked into the Bexar County jail and was released on a $30,000 bond Friday. He is facing a third-degree felony charge.

This week deputies have had to respond to calls of people wearing clothing in support of political candidates at the polling place, said Salazar, though none of the others have resulted in violence or arrest. Voters are not allowed to wear any type of clothing that shows support for a political candidate or measure within 100 feet of a polling location.

Bexar County elections administrator Jacquelyn Callanen said in a statement that she wants Bexar County voters to “remain calm and realize that more than 200,000 early voters have cast their ballot this past week, and the majority of experiences have been positive” Callanen said.

Election officials have been ready to respond to violence at the polls for some time. Those efforts have become a priority in the midst of a contentious presidential election year.

This summer, during its annual state-wide training for election officials, the Texas Secretary of State’s office emphasized safety and emergency preparedness.

The agency’s elections division featured table top exercises and workshops on de-escalation, incident response and emergency preparedness.

Counties across the state, including Bexar, Dallas and Harris have an emergency and incident plan in place and have made it part of their poll worker training.

A May survey of election administrators by the Brennan Center found that 40% of respondents had taken steps to increase the physical security of election offices and polling locations since 2020, and 38% reported experiencing harassment or abuse. Across the country, election offices are doing things like investing in “panic buttons” and training poll workers in de-escalation techniques as a result.

*Natalia Contreras covers election administration and voting access for Votebeat in partnership with the Texas Tribune. Contact Natalia atncontreras@votebeat.org

Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization covering local election integrity and voting access. Sign up for their newsletters here.

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an 9 24

'You are the cancer': Swing state election official admits having PTSD from MAGA threats

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Analysis reveals Trump loyalists have 'infiltrated' election boards in key states

Edward Carver Common Dreams an 9 24

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an 8 24

A new report is sounding the alarm about Republican election officials in Colorado who will likely protest the 2024 election results.

Colorado's election certification system is run by local canvassing boards that feature one Democratic appointee and one Republican, along with an elected elections official, USA Today reported. In the past few elections where the GOP appointee has protested certification, the Democrat and the elected official have outvoted the Republican.

In Jefferson County, which is the western and southwestern part of Denver, **Republican representative Nancy Pallozzi has spent the last three elections refusing to certify results, but critics say that she hasn't ever raised any legitimate reasons to call the results of the election into doubt.

“We’ve worked with Nancy many times, and every election, she sends us a letter with some sort of reason for not certifying the election, and none of it is ever coherent,” wrote Jefferson County Clerk spokesperson Sarah McAfee. “It seems to be some sort of political statement.”

Pallozzi's actions are part of a broader trend of Republican elections officials refusing to sign off one elections where Democrats win. While these objections so far haven't blocked elected officials from taking office, they could nonetheless create chaos and delay the certification of the electoral college this November.

“I think the powers driving the election denial movement have been using the last three years as a testing ground for different techniques, different strategies to see what they can do to create confusion and cause chaos in the process,” Matt Crane, the executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association, told USA Today.

Professor Rick Hasen, from the University of California Los Angeles, who runs ElectionLawBlog.org, said that those local officials could stop the final result if they have enough allies and the election is close.

“It’s a kind of strategy, if it’s a close election, to find a way to slow things down or provide a path for changing election outcomes,” said Hasen.

See the full report and other concerning elections canvassing board officials here.

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an 8 24

a variety of election law experts, from Democracy Docket founder Marc Elias to UCLA law professor Rick L. Hasen, have been warning that if Donald Trump loses the 2024 presidential election to Democratic nominee Kamala Harris, he is certain to fight the election results.

In an article published on August 26, Business Insider's Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert details the post-election fight that Democratic and GOP lawyers are gearing up for.

"This year's election is shaping up to be decided in court, rather than the ballot box, legal experts told Business Insider, and both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are preparing for a nasty legal battle to duke it out," Tangalakis-Lippert explains. "Republican groups, both formally and informally aligned with Trump, are preparing to challenge the outcome of the election in multiple battleground states."

Tangalakis-Lippert describes the actions that that MAGA Republicans have been taking in key swing states like Georgia and Arizona.

"The Guardian reported that Trump allies in Georgia have adopted new rules for the state's election board, allowing members to potentially delay certification of the election over undefined inquiries into ballot discrepancies," the Business Insider reporter notes. "In Arizona, Michigan, and Nevada, the GOP has pushed for voter rolls to be purged despite established federal limits on doing so in the months before the election, per The Washington Post."

Tangalakis-Lippert adds, "Republicans in Nevada also filed a suit to prevent mail-in ballots from being counted if they're received after Election Day, though the legal rationale behind the suit has been dismissed repeatedly by courts in the past, the outlet noted."

Syracuse University law professor David Driesen warns that post-election battles could be especially intense in swing states.

Driesen told Business Insider, "You now have, in the swing states of Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, about 70 election deniers and commissions that are supposed to count the electoral votes, and already there have been about 20 cases where officials in recent elections have refused or delayed certification of results. So what Trump is going to do is claim some kind of fraud and then try to get the officials who believe him to delay or prevent certification on election results…. Or, at least, in a lot of litigation chaos, it could end up putting things in the House of Representatives or to the Supreme Court — which is in Trump's pocket."

Driesen added, "I think (that) the strategy is to try to prevent certification of Harris victories in the swing states where there are substantial numbers of election-law deniers. And sometimes, they may also try to have state legislatures certify alternative slates of electors, using the inability to certify as an approach."

READ MORE:[Former Trump officials consider loyalist Kash Patel especially 'dangerous': report

*Read Business Insider's full report at this link (subscription required).

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| July 30, 2024 rww

Meridith McGraw and Daniel Lippman @ Politico: Head of Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 steps down

Paul Dans, who directed the Heritage Foundation’s controversial 2025 Presidential Transition Project, or Project 2025, is stepping down from his role in August, according to an internal email to staff. Dans’ departure does not mean the project, which has been repeatedly criticized by Democrats as well as Donald Trump, is shutting down.

Paige Skinner @ HuffPost: Twitter Suspends ‘White Dudes For Harris’ Account After $4 Million Fundraising Call

The video call, which featured celebs like Jeff Bridges and Josh Groban, attracted nearly 200,000 supporters of Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign.

Isaac Arnsdorf @ The Washington Post: Vance tells donors Harris change was a ‘sucker punch,’ at odds with campaign

“The bad news is that Kamala Harris does not have the same baggage as Joe Biden,” Trump’s running mate acknowledged at a private event.

David Gardner @ The Daily Beast: Not Just Cat Ladies: J.D. Vance Also Called the Childless ‘Sociopaths’ and ‘Psychotic’

The GOP vice presidential nominee is trying to play down his childless cat lady comment as a one-off, but a new report suggests more of a running theme.

Emine Yücel @ Talking Points Memo: Vance’s History Of Extremist Remarks On Family Doesn’t Stop At ‘Childless Cat Ladies’

Despite the clean up Vance and the former president are attempting, Vance has a history of making extremist remarks about women and families.

Justin Glawe @ **:{Rolling Stone: These Swing State Election Officials Are Pro-Trump Election Deniers}:

At least 70 pro-Trump conspiracists are election officials in key battleground counties — and they are poised to make a giant mess on Election Day.

A Christian Nationalist ‘Trojan Horse’ In The Election Room

By Kyle Mantyla | July 31, 2024 rww

In 2023, self-proclaimed Christian nationalist and unabashed Trump cultist Lance Wallnau announced his intention to travel the country ahead of the 2024 elections in order to break the “demonic strongholds” in swing states that are supposedly preventing Republicans from winning elections. That idea eventually merged with the revival Fire and Glory Tour that Wallnau was doing with fellow MAGA cultist Mario Murillo, resulting in plans to merge political rallies with Christian revival meetings in order to help former President Donald Trump return to the White House.

Dubbed “The Courage Tour,” Wallnau and Murillo have so far held events in Georgia, Arizona, and Michigan, consisting of Christian nationalist political organizing during the day and evening sessions focused on spiritual revival and miracle healing. The purpose of these events, as Wallnau explained earlier this year, is to prepare Christians to rule and reign when Jesus Christ returns by training them to “occupy territory now.”

The plan for training Christians to rule in the End Times by getting them politically involved today was on full display when the Courage Tour stopped in Wisconsin this week, and longtime political activist Joshua Standifer urged attendees to sign up to serve as election workers this November so that they can function as a “Trojan horse” for the Christian nationalist political movement.

Standifer leads an organization called The Lion Of Judah that believes “it’s time that Christians led by the Holy Spirit take back the mountain of Government and transform our nation.”

Talk of taking control of “the mountain of government” flows from Seven Mountains Dominionism, a radical theology associated with the New Apostolic Reformation that advocates having right-wing Christians control all aspects of society. Followers of Seven Mountains theology believe that they are to “do whatever is necessary” to take control of the seven main “mountains” that shape our culture—education, government, media, business, arts and entertainment, family, and religion—in order to implement the will of God throughout the nation and the world. Wallnau is a leading proponent of Seven Mountains Dominionism and the theology is at the center of his Courage Tour efforts.

During his remarks on Monday, Standifer urged the conservative Christians in the audience to become election workers, not just volunteers, because “when the polls start to close or chaos unfolds, they’re gonna kick the volunteers out” while right-wing Christians will remain behind to be “the ones counting the votes.”

“I promised you guys an action plan,” Standifer said. “We spent months calculating and creating, meeting with experts, something that we felt like could take Christians and put them in a place of influence. Just imagine: It’s election night. Chaos is happening. The polls are closing. The volunteers are getting kicked out, but what if we had Christians across America and in swing states like Wisconsin that were actually the ones counting the votes and making sure what’s happening?”

Standifer urged the audience to sign up for his “Fight The Fraud” campaign, which will teach them “how to become an election worker in four easy steps.”

“A lot of people don’t realize this, but in Wisconsin, you can get paid to be an election worker,” he announced. “On election night, what happens is when the polls start to close or chaos unfolds, they’re gonna kick the volunteers out. You are actually going to be a paid election worker. You’re going to be trained by your local municipality. I call this our Trojan Horse in; they don’t see it coming, but we’re going to flood election poll stations across the country with spirit-filled believers.”

IFrame Content

The Trump-controlled Republican Party has also launched a major effort to put MAGA-minded election officials in place and recruit poll workers who could be primed to create chaos by Trump’s repeated insistence that the only way he can lose the election is that Democrats cheat. David Becker, a former Justice Department lawyer who heads the Center for Election Innovation and Research, told the Associated Press that for the Republicans to recruit people “in a way that feeds your voters with the idea that the election is going to be stolen, that prepares them to be angry if their candidate loses — that can be very dangerous.”

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an 7 24

Just as some Republican election officials across the nation assisted Donald Trump with his attempt to overturn the 2020 election, "at least 70" of the former president's allies are expected to do the same in November, according to results from an investigation by Rolling Stone published Monday.

Per Rolling Stone, "Republicans have refused to certify election results at least 25 times since Trump lost the 2020 election to President Joe Biden."

The publication reports:

*Rolling Stone and American Doom compiled its list of election denying election officials by culling media reports about refusals to certify results and other denialist behavior — and by searching the social media profiles of hundreds of election officials in the six swing states.

*The investigation revealed hundreds of posts from officials expressing belief in lies about the 2020 election and skepticism about November, as well as myriad posts about every right-wing culture war issue and conspiracy theory imaginable — a veritable stew simmering with the toxicity of the online American right.

"'I think we are going to see mass refusals to certify the election' in November," Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias told Rolling Stone. "Everything we are seeing about this election is that the other side is more organized, more ruthless, and more prepared."

In partnership with American Doom — 'a newsletter that focuses on right-wing extremism and other threats to democracy" — Rolling Stone "compiled its list of election denying election officials by culling media reports about refusals to certify results and other denialist behavior — and by searching the social media profiles of hundreds of election officials in the six swing states."

Pickens County, Georgia election official Larry Brown posted, "I don’t trust the runoff," just "two weeks after the 2020 election, as Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock faced Republican Kelly Loeffler in a runoff."

Additionally, Gwinnett County, Georgia official David Hancock wrote on Facebook earlier this year: "At this moment there are NO guidelines on what is required to certify an election in Georgia. But some of us are working to change that. Stand by."

Rolling Stone also notes:

*On June 11, Republican Clara Andriola, who was expelled from her local party for not towing the line on election denialism, faced off against Mark Lawson, a former firefighter who was fired for possession and distribution of steroids and who has questioned the results of the 2020 election. Andriola won, but local Republicans cited problems with mail-in ballots — and a bizarre claim about someone in a vote-counting room with a thumb drive — as evidence of fraud. On June 21, Washoe County commissioners Michael Clark and Jeanne Herman, both Republicans, voted against certifying the results of the primary. Andriola voted with the commission’s two Democrats to certify results, which showed her beating Lawson by 1,725 votes.

Per the publication, Elias "believes the findings in this investigation only represent 'the tip of the iceberg,' because Republicans 'are counting on not just that they can disrupt the election in big counties, they are counting on the fact that if they don’t certify in several small counties, you cannot certify these statewide results.'"

*Rolling Stone's full report is available here(subscription required).

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7 24 kari lake beats sheriff mark lamb in primary and

A Republican election official who has been overseeing the voting process in Arizona's most populous county for the last four years was just voted out in Tuesday night's GOP primary.

The Associated Press called the race Wednesday morning, with Republican state representative Justin Heap in a comfortable lead over incumbent Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer. Don Hiatt, another GOP challenger, placed third. According to NBC News, Heap had the backing of MAGA aligned GOP Senate nominee Kari Lake, who continues to insist that former President Donald Trump was the true winner of the 2020 election. She has also refused to acknowledge her loss in the 2022 gubernatorial election, in which Democrat Katie Hobbs won by roughly 17,000 votes statewide.

"I am endorsing Justin Heap for the Maricopa County recorder because we want honest elections,” said Lake last month. “We need a heap of honesty in our elections.”

After the GOP primary results were announced, both moderate conservatives and independents mourned Richer's loss. 2020 Democratic presidential candidate Andrew Yang tweeted that Richer losing the primary was a "terrible sign for the AZ Republican Party," and noted that he "stood up for election integrity despite threats and attacks."

"Much love and gratitude to Stephen Richer and the rest who took abuse for doing their jobs with integrity in Maricopa County," tweeted Bulwark podcast host Tim Miller.

Richer was an outlier in the modern Republican Party, given his commitment to overseeing fair elections and not trafficking in election conspiracies in the midst of threats from the MAGA faction of the GOP. Maricopa County Republican Party vice chair Shelby Busch said in June that she would "lynch" Richer, and refused to walk back the comment, saying it was made "in jest." Richer condemned Busch for the remark in an interview with AZFamily.com.

“If lynching is in your vocabulary you need to have a heart to heart with yourself,” Richer said. “That shouldn’t be in your vocabulary given the history of that term and it shouldn’t be on your vocabulary to say about anyone you with whom you disagree.”

In a statement posted to X (formerly Twitter) after his loss was announced, Richer pledged to use the remaining few months in his position to ensure that either Heap or Democratic nominee Timothy Stringham would be able to have a smooth transition into their new role. He added that he would work to "ensure the continued efficient and lawful execution of my duties in recording, voter registration, and mail voting."

"Elections have winners and, sadly, losers. And in this one, it looks like I'm going to end up on the losing side of the column," Richer tweeted. "But that's the name of the game. Accept it. Move on."

Click here to read NBC's report in full.

READ MORE:['Chaos': GOP officials in AZ county cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands in election fights

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:{:{May 13, 2024 rww}:

Frederick Clarkson @ Religion Dispatches: Where’s Wallnau? A NAR Apostle Takes Aim at Swing Counties in ‘The Battle for the Mountain of Government’

Just as they prophesied Trump’s victory and collaborated in the 2020 attempted coup, the Trump wing of the New Apostolic Reformation is on the offensive once again, waging a campaign in counties they think will swing the 2024 presidential election.

Khaya Himmelman @ Talking Points Memo: Far-Right Group Recruits Followers To Overwhelm Election Offices With Voter Roll Challenges

True the Vote is enlisting private citizens to help it overwhelm under-staffed and under-resourced election offices with voter roll challenges ahead of election day.

Peter Green @ The Bucks County Beacon: Republican Pennsylvania State Representative with Ties to the New Apostolic Reformation Wants Chaplains in Public Schools

Rep. David Zimmerman’s bill is the latest carefully spun attempt to inject a right-wing brand of Christianity into schools in hopes of bringing more children to Jesus. It has already happened in Texas and Florida.

Riley Rogerson @ The Daily Beast: Mike Collins Is the Hardest-Working Troll in Congress

The freshman member from Georgia doesn’t have much of a legislative record, but he sure can stir up trouble online.

Martin Pengelly @ The Guardian: Outrage after ex-Trump aide claims he gave unhoused people fake money

Johnny McEntee, the former White House Trump aide closely linked to plans for radical federal government reform should Donald Trump win re-election, stoked outrage with a TikTok video in which he claimed to give unhoused people fake money, thereby to ensure their arrest.

Steve Benen @ The Maddow Blog: In his latest flub, Trump touts ‘the late, great Hannibal Lecter’

As Donald Trump remarks on “the late, great Hannibal Lecter,” perhaps the former president ought to just give up on pop culture references altogether.

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Arizona election denial group leader uses QAnon-affiliated channel to urge viewers to flood election officials with spurious records requests

Inundating election officials with records requests is a tactic increasingly popular in the election denial movement

WRITTEN BY ALEX KAPLAN

PUBLISHED 01/11/24

An Arizona county Republican Party official who also leads an election denial organization in the state used a recent appearance on a QAnon-affiliated Rumble channel to encourage viewers to inundate election administration officials with public records requests — a tactic increasingly popular in the election denial movement.

During a January 8 appearance on The Tina Peters Show, Shelby Busch, a vice chair of the Maricopa County Republican Committee and co-founder of the election denial organization We the People AZ Alliance, told viewers to “be demanding” of election officials.

“Ask questions and start requesting records,” advised Busch, whose organization is primarily funded by fellow election denier and QAnon-connected figure Patrick Byrne. “Remind them that this is the people’s election.”

Badlands Media’s The Tina Peters Show and its eponymous host, Tina Peters, have ample ties to the QAnon movement and election denialism. Peters is a former Mesa County, Colorado, clerk who was indicted in 2022 by a grand jury for allegedly facilitating a security breach of her county’s election infrastructure. Peters has associated with a number of QAnon figures and has invoked QAnon terminology on her show. The Badlands Media Rumble channel was founded by QAnon influencers and largely dedicates its programming to covering QAnon and its related conspiracy theories.

During the interview, Peters and Busch rehashed supposed instances of election fraud in Arizona during the 2020 presidential election. At one point, Peters asked Busch to “tell people what they can do in their Maricopa … to make change” regarding elections.

In response, Busch, who also appeared on Peters’ show last April, told viewers to “learn how to do” public records requests to election administration officials regarding possible election fraud. Flooding election officials with such requests has become an increasingly common tactic used by the election denial movement.

Busch also offered to help Peters’ viewers put together their own records requests. She provided viewers with her email address and said, “If you don’t know how to do them, email me … or reach out to us through our website.”

“I will be happy to send you a template and walk you through it,” she added.

Peters also promoted Busch’s We the People AZ Alliance email address in an on-screen graphic during the show and urged viewers to contact Busch for help with their records requests.

Video

CitationFrom the January 8, 2024, edition of Badlands Media's The Tina Peters Show, streamed on Rumble

TINA PETERS (HOST): OK, so Shelby, tell the people — so you mentioned about your volunteers and the people that are working so hard. Tell people what they can do in their Maricopa, what they can do in their counties to make change.

SHELBY BUSCH (CO-FOUNDER OF WE THE PEOPLE AZ ALLIANCE): Absolutely. So number one, public records requests. Learn how to do them. And if you don’t know how to do them, email me at … or reach out to us through our website, and I will be happy to send you a template and walk you through it. Start asking questions. Be demanding of these election officials. Ask questions and start requesting records. Remind them that this is the people’s election. So that’s a first and foremost — you should really, really just start holding your government accountable. And if you don’t know how or what to do, get with somebody who does and learn. So it’s number one.

Number two, get involved with grassroots organizations in your community that are working on stuff like this and see where you can serve. Our voter rolls in every state are a mess. So it’s a great place to start, is learning how to look at voter rolls, knocking on neighbors’ doors, and just making sure that we have legitimate voters in our own neighborhoods. So that’s a really — another thing that you can do. It’s really easy.

But if none of that works for you, if you don’t have time for public records requests or to learn a new challenge, or you’re not comfortable knocking on doors, or maybe you can’t get out of the house, you can pray, because this is a spiritual battle beyond all, and you can show up on Election Day and cast your ballot, and you can stand up for election workers and election officials like Tina, who are putting everything on the line to expose this to the world. Support people who are trying to do the right thing, stand by their side, and encourage them. But most importantly, start developing relationships in your own community with your legislators and your elected officials. Because this is all we have is our voice. And make sure that you know how to use it.

PETERS: Yes. Thank you so much. And I put in the ticker at the bottom of the screen, “learn how to do public record requests at … .” You can — you can email Shelby, and she will send you or give you information how you can do that.

I think that’s so good. I — you know, I’ve had people on too, Shelby, about doing grand jury, you know, just — people have to get involved. They need to learn how to do pro se filings. You don’t always need to have an attorney. You can learn how to pro se, and the judge actually gives you more leniency if you’re not an attorney in how to do that. So I believe everybody can stand up. Everybody can do something. I always say there’s more of us than there are of them. They can’t get us all.

Busch’s use of Peters’ show marks yet another connection between the election denial and QAnon movements, with the former repeatedly using the latter for their efforts.

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https://www.alternet.org/maricopa-county-elections/

threat jail az

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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/another-far-right-group-was-posting-conspiracy-theories-about-voter-roll-program-as-red-states-cut-ties

tpm 4 23

as Republican-led states pull out of a multistate voter roll program in response to Gateway Pundit-pushed conspiracy theories about the organization, a conservative nonprofit was apparently also part of fanning the flames.

Judicial Watch, a far-right legal advocacy group, published a white paper in early March boosting erroneous claims about the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a bipartisan program designed to maintain voter rolls across state lines.

The paper, which the non-profit reupped on their website Friday, sought to legitimize debunked claims made by the far-right website Gateway Pundit last year, which falsely argued that ERIC was founded by “left-leaning attorney David Becker” and funded by GeorgeSoros.

Judicial Watch claims that Becker had a “history of left-wing activism and unethical conduct,” and that ERIC “shares the vast amount of sensitive personal data it receives from member states with another liberal non-profit, the Center for Election Innovation and Research,” which they linked to the “Zuckerbucks” controversy, another election-related conspiracy theory.

Becker did help a handful of states launch the non-partisan program with a group called the Pew Charitable Trusts in 2012, but Soros never directly contributed to ERIC.Becker has sat on ERIC’s board as a non-voting ex-officio member since its founding, but on March 14 he announced that he would be vacating the position due to the conspiracy theories about his role that were being pushed by the right-wing media.

The Judicial Watch report was originally published on March 9, three days after Florida Secretary of State Cord Byrd (R) announced that his state would be withdrawing from the program alongside Missouri and West Virginia. That afternoon, former president Donald Trump attacked ERIC on Truth Social as well:

“All Republican Governors should immediately pull out of ERIC, the terrible Voter Registration System that ‘pumps the rolls’ for Democrats and does nothing to clean them up,” he wrote. “It’s a fools game for Republicans…”

On March 10, Texas officials also signaled their interest in leaving the program, and they’ve since drawn up legislation to do so. Ohio and Iowa announced their departures on March 17.

ERIC executive director Shane Hamlin posted an open letter on March 2 trying to bat down misinformation about the program, but it didn’t stop what would become a wave of red state officials cutting ties with the program.

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jeez

https://www.alternet.org/2022/03/florida-gop-ban-legal-assistance/ to election officials

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https://www.mediamatters.org/tucker-carlson/tucker-carlson-didnt-mention-his-guest-trying-decertify-2020-election-wisconsin

March 7, Tucker Carlson hosted Michael Gableman, a special counsel hired by the Republican-controlled Wisconsin legislature, to highlight an interim report by Gableman about the 2020 election. The segment was touted by a spokesperson for Donald Trump. But it left out some crucial details. [vid]

CARLSON (HOST): So you learn a lot about what the people in charge care about by what they won't allow you to say. And at the very top of the list of things you're not allowed to say, can literally get you silenced and censored for saying, is that there was voter fraud in the last election. But the fact is there was and the deeper you dig, the more of it you find.

The Wisconsin Office of Special Counsel has just released its second report on the subject, and it's pretty unbelievable. The report found, among other things, quote 100 percent voting rates in many nursing homes in Brown, Dane, Kenosha, Milwaukee, and Racine counties. Several of these nursing home residents that had voted had been previously declared incompetent. Michael Gabelman is the special counsel to the Wisconsin Assembly, he is also a former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice. By the way, we will be speaking to Mr. Gableman at much greater length at Tucker Carlson Today. But we wanted to preview the conversation right now. Mr. Gableman, thanks so much for coming on. Now, I – the report is, in my opinion, pretty shocking. But just give us give us the overview of what you found.

MICHAEL GABLEMAN (SPECIAL COUNSEL TO THE WISCONSIN ASSEMBLY): Tucker, the overview relates right back to what you said in your opening segment, the relatively unremarkable observation that all lives are equal. Well, it should be relatively – It should be also unremarkable to say that all votes in a democracy are equal. But that wasn't the case in Wisconsin in November 2020. We had a wave of massive election bribery in which government officials in the five Zuckerberg-sponsored cities participated, as well as what you related when you introduced your audience to me, which is the government-sponsored elder abuse, all to wring out votes from people who frankly were victimized by the very people at the Wisconsin Elections Commission who are supposed to keep our voters safe.

CARLSON: I'm a little confused. So, Mark Zuckerberg is a tech billionaire. He's not a government official. He has no legal or constitutional right to control our elections. But it sounds like he had a great deal of control over the elections in Wisconsin.

GABLEMAN: He had a great deal. He adopted a plan by a guy who became his employee named David Plouffe, who wrote the unsubtlely-titled book A Citizen's Guide to Beating Donald Trump. And in Nevada, on November 11, 2016, David Plouffe did a postmortem on the Hillary Clinton campaign failure to win. And he said the two big mistakes that the Hillary Clinton campaign made were failing to target cities like Milwaukee and failing to drive out the numbers of the African-American vote. And so Mark Zuckerberg has $330 million dollars that he's going to spend to defeat Donald Trump, and he puts David Plouffe's lessons in the of the 2016 campaign into operation in Wisconsin. And now we are seeing a complete cover-up and obstruction by the very so-called public servants who ran this election, who should have been in charge, but who delegated it out to Mark Zuckerberg's agents and virtually employees. We had one guy, Michael Spitzer Rubenstein, a lawyer from Brooklyn, New York, who was running the election site on Election Day in the city of Green Bay. One of our five largest cities, also one of the five cities to receive the Zuckerberg money – $8.8 million dollars between the five.

CARLSON: That's just it's all beyond belief, and you'd think that people who wanted to defend democracy would be outraged, but of course, they're in favor of it. Michael, this report, and again, we haven't always highlighted voter fraud on this show, but this report proves it. It's horrifying and really look forward to speaking to you at much greater length on Tucker Carlson Today.

Here’s some of what Carlson left out.

To start with, neither Carlson nor Gableman mentioned that Gableman has called for decertifying Wisconsin’s 2020 election, even though that’s not legally possible, according to lawyers for the legislature. That’s a fairly large omission right from the jump, and it gets worse.

Neither Carlson nor Gableman disclosed that Gableman had previously appeared at a Trump rally.

Gableman’s report, his presentation to the Wisconsin assembly, and much of his segment with Carlson were based on a conspiracy theory about Facebook/Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s private donations to the Center for Tech and Civic Life, which helped over 2,500 jurisdictions across the country hold an election during the pandemic.

As NPR reported back in 2020, “The money arrived as historically underfunded election department budgets were sapped from unforeseen purchases during the primaries and were forced to spend money on election workers, postage and printing for the increasing number of voters who wanted to vote by mail.” The NPR report even broke down how some Wisconsin jurisdictions used the money.

Conspiracy theories have swirled in right-wing circles about the grants since the election, but as NPR noted, “An APM Reports analysis of voter registration and voter turnout in three of the five key swing states shows the grant funding had no clear impact on who turned out to vote.” The Associated Press also reported that three lawsuits arguing that the funding was illegal under state law were all rejected.

Sarah Mimms at BuzzFeed News dove into Gableman’s criticism of how the state handled senior citizen voting; he claimed a decision not to send voting assistants into nursing homes meant mentally unfit residents cast ballots. She noted that Gableman's team interviewed nursing home residents about how elections work “apparently as a test of their capacity to have voted,” but that a Democratic legislator at the presentation noted that only a judge can take away a person's right to vote.

Mimms also noted that Gableman’s report asked nursing home residents “whether they would support a hypothetical candidate for office who wanted to raise taxes to create government health insurance, apparently as a test of their capacity to have voted.” And she wrote that a Democrat pointed out to Gableman at the hearing that only a judge can prevent a person from voting.

The AP also noted in a fact check that the history behind the nursing home decision was far more complicated than Gableman let on:

State law does require local election clerks to send so-called special voting deputies to nursing homes to give residents an opportunity to vote. After trying to make two visits, the deputies can mail absentee ballots to the residents instead.

But early in the COVID-19 pandemic, when the Wisconsin Elections Commission made its decision, the state was under a safer-at-home order and nursing homes were severely limiting who could come into their facilities, often not even allowing immediate family members inside.

The elections commission, split evenly among Republicans and Democrats, in March 2020 voted unanimously that poll workers could not be sent into nursing homes. The commission voted 5-1 in two follow-up votes extending the order through the November 2020 election before rescinding it in March 2021. Instead of sending in voting deputies, the commission directed clerks to mail absentee ballots to nursing home residents who had requested them.

State election commissioners have defended their move, saying they were trying to ensure nursing home residents could vote by sending absentee ballots instead of voting assistants who may not have been allowed to enter.

Mimms also noted that Gableman struggled to explain why, if there was as much fraud as he suggests, Trump did so much worse than other Republicans on the ballot.

And she highlighted one detail that might explain why Gableman is interested in a media tour right now: His contract may be up.

Assembly Majority Leader Jim Steineke, a Republican who is retiring at the end of the year, tweeted Tuesday that he will “do everything possible to stop any effort, to put politicians in charge of deciding who wins or loses elections.” Speaker Robin Vos, who hired Gableman, did not respond to a request for comment.

When Vos first started the 2020 election investigation, under intense pressure from Trump and his supporters, he insisted that its focus wasn’t on trying to undo the 2020 election, but on providing a rationale for passing election reforms through the legislature this year. Gableman’s report, however, came too late for that. As Democratic Rep. Mark Spreitzer noted during the hearing, Vos passed a few election-related bills last week — which would not survive a veto from Democratic Gov. Tony Evers — and the Assembly is unlikely to meet again this session.

Gableman told legislators Tuesday that he is planning to continue his investigation, but that the status of his contract with Vos is “complicated” and they are “going back and forth on the terms and the scope of the continued contract.” Vos did not respond to a request for comment on the contract.

“I believe that I do have a continuing contract through the rendering of services,” Gableman said. “Others take the position that my authority ran out at the end of December of ‘21."

This segment is indistinguishable from the right-wing media segments that served as a pretext for the January 6 insurrection. We’re more than a year past that awful day, and Fox News is still throwing gasoline on American democracy. It’s only going to get worse.

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how MAGA Republicans are 'purging' Democrats from local election boards in a ruthless power grab: report

Alex Henderson

January 31, 2022

The voter suppression bills that Republicans have been pushing in state legislatures all over the U.S. are dangerous not only because of the ways in which they make voting more difficult, but also, because they see...

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republicans in Wisconsin have upped the operational tempo in their ongoing war on free and fair elections. Trump stalwart United States Senator Ron Johnson is exhorting state GOP legislators in his home state to illegally seize control of federal election administration over the objections of the governor. Johnson's plan is contravened not only by a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling, but also by a ruling of the US Supreme Court. But who's counting?

Johnson is buoyed by a fringe constitutional theory popularized by Trump lawyer John Eastman in his notorious coup memos. Eastman asserted that state legislatures had ultimate power over election administration, including the right to cast aside the popular vote for Biden and choose Trump electors instead, provided a Republican yells "fraud" loudly enough.

A long-awaited report commissioned by the Republican state legislature found no evidence of election fraud in 2020. Instead of reflecting on the life choices that have led their state to the brink of one-party rule, the Wisconsin GOP has redirected its rage towards the non-partisan Wisconsin Elections Commission. These legislators are looking for a pretext to abolish the WEC and usurp its powers.

The report alleged a handful of picayune violations of election law by the WEC, including sending absentee ballots to nursing homes. WEC Administrator Meagan Wolfe defended her commission's work and said the report contains errors. These errors could have been resolved if the WEC had been allowed to review the report before publication, as audited agencies typically are. But the first rule of endlessly re-litigating the 2020 election is never to let the facts get in the way of a good smear.

Republican vindictiveness knows no bounds. It's not enough to slander Wolfe and her colleagues, and demand their resignations. Earlier this month, the Republican sheriff of Racine County asked the Republican district attorney to file felony charges against five of the WEC's six members. Their alleged crime? Helping little old ladies vote in nursing homes while protecting them from Covid.

If Racine County DA Patricia Hanson agrees to go along with this charade, these dedicated public servants could each be charged with two Class 1 felonies, which, in the vanishingly unlikely event they are convicted, could carry up to three and a half years in prison apiece.

Wisconsin law requires pairs of officials known as "special voting deputies" to visit every nursing home in the state twice to help residents vote. However, during that phase of the pandemic, most nursing homes banned all visitors, including the deputies. And for good reason. It didn't seem very safe to send these officials and their various hangers-on traipsing from one nursing home to the next, interacting with patients, and possibly spreading the virus.

Therefore, the WEC voted to stop trying to send deputies to nursing homes (where they were already banned) and instead to send absentee ballots to nursing homes. The sheriff alleges that illegal votes were cast because cognitively impaired residents were assisted in voting. This despite the fact that people with cognitive disabilities retain their right to vote in Wisconsin unless a judge determines that they are incompetent. A family member's gut feeling that Mom is too senile to vote is legally worthless.

Wolfe insists the decision to send absentee ballots was not only legal but required by state law: "The law says if you cannot accomplish those two visits by special voting deputies, if a voter cannot vote during those two visits, that you have to send the ballots to the voters in those care facilities," Wolfe explained. She also noted that if they hadn't sent absentee ballots, these elderly and disabled voters would have been disenfranchised.

Elections officials across the country have been subjected to death threats from voters who have been duped by the Big Lie of election fraud. The threat of felony charges is taking the terror campaign to the next level.

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bannon?

https://www.alternet.org/2021/10/michigan-gop/

members of Michigan's Republican Party are installing conspiracy theorists for election-related positions.Although the individuals currently in position have years of experience, they are being replaced with Trump enthusiasts who have no political experience. It appears their only qualification is adhering to the Trump agenda.

According to The Daily Beast, a former official for the Michigan Republican Party have weighed in to express their concern about the disturbing shift in the political party's leadership. The publication reports that Michigan Republican officials are working to put canvassers in place who will continue to support Trump's election-related conspiracy theories.

Jeff Timmer, who was the former executive director of Michigan's GOP, expressed concern about what can be expected in the coming months as he suggested the political party is heading down a "rabbit-hole."

"There's no resistance within the Republican Party," Timmer said. "They are wholly invested, almost to a person, in the delusional Big Lie that there was some widespread irregularity and malfeasance in the last election, and that they need to take extraordinary steps, either by changing laws or in this case, changing elections personnel in order to fix a non-existent problem."

With an alarming number of individuals still buying into Trump's "big lie," Timmer explained how alarming Republicans' efforts are to strategically put people in place who have no problem hijacking democracy.

"It's kind of scary-looking ahead because the Republicans are making no secret about their plans to create chaos and throw a wrench in the gears of the next election," Timmer said, adding, "trying to put people in place who will go beyond what the law allows and do things in the next election that they didn't feel they had people in place to do in the last one."

However, the issue isn't just concerning for traditional Republicans but also Democratic lawmakers. Speaking to The Beast,David Knezek, a Democratic commissioner for Wayne County, also criticized the origin of the latest conspiracy-driven movement.

"Across the country there is a sad and systematic effort to create an alternate reality in which Donald Trump won the 2020 election," Knezek said. "Part of that effort is to seat canvassers who want to perpetuate this lie and call into question the validity of all elections across the country. Americans of both political parties must come together to put aside partisanship and protect our system of democracy by passionately advocating for the truth."

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