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https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2022/09/06/the-thomas-more-society-and-other-outside-groups-influence-on-partisan-wisconsin-election-investigation/

https://pbswisconsin.org/news-item/blurring-of-lines-private-lawyer-plays-starring-role-in-taxpayer-funded-wisconsin-election-probe/

Blurring of lines': Private lawyer plays starring role in taxpayer-funded Wisconsin election probe

With no contract and no official role, the work of attorney Erick Kaardal of the Thomas More Society dominates the 2020 investigation headed by former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman.

Wisconsin Watch

April 27, 2022

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two-story office building in a Milwaukee suburb houses three entities that have led a months-long campaign sowing doubt about Wisconsin's 2020 presidential election.

The gray, indistinct building in Brookfield lists about a dozen occupants, including a marketing company on the first floor, and financial services firms on the second.

But there are three occupants whose names are nowhere to be found: Special Counsel Michael Gableman, attorney Erick Kaardal and the Thomas More Society.

The three, led by former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Gableman, are collaborating on the $676,000 investigation into alleged election fraud launched by Assembly Speaker Robin Vos.

Although he lacks a contract or official role in Gableman's taxpayer-funded investigation, Kaardal has become a de facto lead investigator. A Wisconsin Watch analysis shows roughly half of the chapters in Gableman's 136-page interim report are based on Kaardal's work.

Since September, the Minnesota attorney and the conservative Chicago law firm for which he works have subleased office space for about $3,000 a month directly from a company owned by Gableman.

A two-story office building with tinted windows is faced by bushes and leafless trees.]

This Brookfield office building is the headquarters for former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman’s investigation of the 2020 election. Attorney Erick Kaardal and the Thomas More Society are subleasing office space from Gableman’s company as they assist in the Assembly’s investigation. The building was photographed on April 13, 2022. (Credit: Matt Mencarini / Wisconsin Watch)

An office building interior shows a directory with the title "Executive Center," with fake plants arrayed in different locations of the space.

This is the front lobby of the Brookfield office building, where former state Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman is running the Assembly’s investigation of the 2020 election. Gableman, attorney Erick Kaardal and the Thomas More Society’s names are not listed as occupants on the directory. It was photographed on April 13, 2022. (Credit: Matt Mencarini / Wisconsin Watch)

Kaardal's and Thomas More Society's connections to — and potential influence on — Gableman's investigation stretch beyond 2,100 square feet of office space. As a private attorney, Kaardal also represents people under guardianship orders featured in Gableman's investigation — clients he charges are victims of "voter abuse."

Rep. Mark Spreitzer, D-Beloit, a member of the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections, said he "absolutely" has concerns about the relationship between Kaardal, the Thomas More Society and Gableman.

Spreitzer also criticized the quality of the information Gableman has released so far, such as the suspiciously high voter turnout rates for nursing homes — claims that media organizations have debunked.

"It's cherry-picked (data) at best, and simply wrong at worst," Spreitzer said.

Mark Spreitzer shakes hands in the Wisconsin Assembly chamber.

Assembly elections committee member Rep. Mark Spreitzer, D-Beloit, says he is concerned about the role of Erick Kaardal and the Thomas More Society in the taxpayer-funded probe into Wisconsin's 2020 presidential election. He is seen at Gov. Tony Evers' second State of the State address at the State Capitol on Jan. 22, 2020 in Madison. (Credit: Coburn Dukehart / Wisconsin Watch)

Gableman's office did not return a message seeking comment, and neither did representatives for Vos, R-Rochester, or Democratic Attorney General Josh Kaul, who is suing Gableman and Vos, arguing they lack authority to force officials to participate in the investigation.

Gableman's original contract expired at the end of 2021, but was extended through the end of April 2022. It now appears to be nearing a close. Gableman has said Vos intends to halt his investigation before the end of the month.

'Pro-family' group shifts to elections

For nearly 25 years, the Thomas More Society was best known for filing pro-life and “pro-family” litigation, including representing a California baker who refused to make a cake for a same-sex couple’s wedding.

But in recent years, Kaardal and the Thomas More Society have become central figures in questioning the validity of the 2020 election — pushing theories that judges, audits and other reviews have rejected.

The society's funding has ballooned as it added election-related litigation to its focus areas. Its financial statement for the 2020 fiscal year, the most recent available, showed $17.4 million in revenue, up from $9.6 million the previous year.

That money has helped Thomas More file lawsuits in multiple states challenging how the 2020 election was administered, with a particular interest in the grant money to local municipalities from the Center for Tech and Civic Life, a Mark Zuckerberg-funded charity.

A screenshot shows Erick Kaardal speaking in front of a podium in a legislative hearing room, with observers seated in the background.]

Erick Kaardal delivers remarks to members of the Wisconsin Assembly elections committee at the State Capitol in Madison on March 1, 2022. Kaardal and the nonprofit law firm, Thomas More Society, are playing unofficial but central roles in the ongoing investigation into Wisconsin's 2020 presidential election. (Credit: Courtesy of WisEye)

Among Kaardal's other election-related lawsuits is a 2020 case against then-Vice President Mike Pence, Congress and others seeking to stop the Electoral College count that was so filled with "baseless fraud allegations and tenuous legal claims" that the judge filed an ethics referral against him. That matter is still pending.

In March 2022, as Gableman presented the findings in his interim report to the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections, he complimented Kaardal and the Thomas More Society, saying they'd done "very substantial and very wonderful work on behalf of the people of this state."

But the tangled relationships raise questions about who Kaardal is really working for: himself and his clients, the Thomas More Society or the state of Wisconsin.

'Unseemly' relationship?

Much of what Gableman released in March repackaged previous work from Kaardal and the Thomas More Society, including video interviews with seven of Kaardal's own clients.

Kaardal told Wisconsin Watch he provided the former justice with information that he gathered while preparing for lawsuits and complaints, but that Gableman didn't pass along anything his team had learned.

Tom Brejcha, Thomas More Society's president, said in an interview that he saw no conflicts of interest with the connections and communications between himself, his law firm and Gableman. And he became angry when pressed to clarify those relationships.

"We worked with him on the investigation," Brejcha said of the connection with Gableman, later adding that "we wanted to know the nature of the investigation and how we could help."

Gableman had shared information with them, he said, but nothing that was confidential.

"I'm sure we've exchanged information about matters of public concern," Brejcha said, adding that he's talked with Gableman "a handful of times but declined” to say how often or when they last spoke.

Peter Breen and Thomas Brejcha stand in a room with bookshelves in the background.]

Attorneys for the Thomas More Society, Peter Breen, vice president and senior counsel, and Thomas Brejcha, president and chief counsel, pose in their Chicago offices on July 10, 2013. The Thomas More Society is playing a central but unofficial role in the investigation into Wisconsin's 2020 presidential election. (Credit: Nancy Stone / Chicago Tribune)

At one point, Brejcha accused Wisconsin Watch of launching an "attack" on Gableman. "I don't care to continue this anymore," he said, and eventually hung up.

Jeff Mandell, a Madison attorney who specializes in election law, said it's an "unseemly" relationship between entities with different goals.

"There's certainly a blurring of lines," he said, "between what's supposed to be an independent government investigation and private, partisan actors."

'Protect the people from the government'

Kaardal has been a lawyer since the early 1990s and, in his own words, has made a career of suing the government.

"My viewpoint is that the most important thing for courts to do is protect the people from the government," he said.

He's filed dozens of lawsuits in state and federal courts — many of them over election administration.

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In 2012, Kaardal unsuccessfully challenged Minnesota's same-day voter registration procedure, which Wisconsin also has. That lawsuit also alleged that Minnesota residents who were under guardianship orders and ineligible to vote were able to register and cast ballots, a claim he's made in Wisconsin in recent months in complaints he filed with the Wisconsin Elections Commission. The argument also failed in Minnesota, but Gableman included the allegations in his report and presentation in March.

In 2019, Kaardal represented a group of landlords in Minneapolis and St. Paul in a federal lawsuit that argued ordinances that required them to provide voter registration information to new tenants violated their First Amendment right to not speak.

Kaardal and the landlords won.

'Christian heritage' advocacy, ethics complaint

As the 2020 election neared, Kaardal filed a flurry of lawsuits in multiple states.

He sued over masks mandated for in-person voting in Minnesota, which he lost. He represented Kanye West in his attempts to get on the presidential ballot in Wisconsin, and lost.

And in December 2020, he filed a lawsuit on behalf of plaintiffs including the Wisconsin Voters Alliance — part of a multi-state "election integrity watchdog" group — to prevent Pence and Congress from counting the electoral votes on Jan. 6, arguing that only state legislatures had the authority to certify the election.

The day after the election was certified, Kaardal voluntarily dismissed the lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C. But that didn't stop a federal judge from referring him to the Committee on Grievances for potential discipline. The judge called Kaardal's legal theory "somewhere between a willful misreading of the Constitution and fantasy." Kaardal is fighting the referral. He declined to comment on it.

Kaardal also co-authored several books, including a 2013 tome that advocated for preserving "“the Christian cultural heritage" of the United States through immigration policies that would limit the number of people who are not Jewish or Christian to no more than 10% of the population.

A book cover reads "The Rebirth Constitution: A Whole New Constitution for the Freedom Loving People of the United States" with a "Don

In his 2013 book, Erick Kaardal, an attorney for the Thomas More Society, argues for a national immigration policy to limit non-Christians and non-Jews to less than 10% of the U.S. population. Kaardal is playing a central but unofficial role in the election investigation led by former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman. (Credit: Amazon.com)

In an email, Kaardal defended his writing, saying, "The books, if one reads them, stand on their own as an attempt to contribute to current political philosophy."

Thomas More turns to elections

Since the early 1990s, the Thomas More Society — which operates as a tax exempt 501(c)(3), the same nonprofit designation as Wisconsin Watch — has spent much of its time and resources on anti-abortion and self-described family values lawsuits. It is named after St. Thomas More, the patron saint of lawyers among Catholics.

The law firm successfully defended a maternity shelter in Missouri that fought a state mandate to provide insurance coverage for contraception. And during the pandemic, it represented churches that refused to abide by government-issued COVID-19 restrictions, getting victories for some of their clients.

In January, the firm won a $75,000 settlement for a Louisville, Kentucky police officer who was investigated for marching in uniform with protesters outside of an abortion clinic.

A year before the 2020 election, the public interest law firm added "voter integrity" and "voter participation" to its mission statement for the first time. Kaardal told Wisconsin Watch that the group had seen election administration issues had "ripened" over the years and become "politicized."

Mandell, the election law attorney, said despite the society being new to election litigation, "They have certainly come with a vengeance for it in Wisconsin."

Election grants at heart of probe

In his March presentation to the committee, Gableman adopted the society's oft-repeated claim that officials in five Democratic-leaning cities — Green Bay, Kenosha, Milwaukee, Madison and Racine — committed "election bribery" by accepting $8.8 million in grants.

Gableman's charge is that officials in those "Zuckerberg 5" cities used illegal grant money from the Center for Tech and Civic Life — which went to more than 200 Wisconsin municipalities — to facilitate voting. The money went toward training additional election workers, adding secure ballot drop boxes, conducting voter education campaigns and other tasks.

The state election bribery law bans anyone from giving money, employment or anything else of value to entice someone to vote or not vote, or to vote a particular way. Gableman devotes nearly half of his 136-page interim report to these grants.

Michael Gableman speaks in a legislative hearing room with video cameras and their operators in the background.

Michael Gableman delivers remarks to members of the Wisconsin Assembly elections committee at the State Capitol in Madison on March 1, 2022. Roughly half of Gableman's report on his election investigation delivered that day was based on work by attorney Erick Kaardal and the nonprofit Thomas More Society law firm, who have no official role in the taxpayer-funded probe. (Credit: John Hart / Wisconsin State Journal)

Prior to the election, Kaardal filed a federal lawsuit in Wisconsin over the CTCL money, which a judge dismissed. After the election, he filed complaints with the Wisconsin Elections Commission, which were also thrown out.

"We can't have third parties using private money to influence cities to do an illegal ... election administration," Kaardal said. "And so that's why we're gonna win."

But so far, that hasn't happened.

He's filed state and federal lawsuits over the CTCL grant money in at least five states: Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Iowa and Georgia. Kaardal lost all the lawsuits filed before the election. Some suits Kaardal filed after the election remain pending.

Atiba Ellis, a Marquette University law school professor who specializes in election law, said grants to help municipalities run elections are accepted practice across the country.

"Short of voters getting paid directly out of these grants, it seems difficult for me to make a connection between what the folks who are getting these grants are doing and credible claims or bribery," Ellis said.

He said labeling the grants as election bribery is "a dangerous road to go down" because local governments rely on grant money to carry out all sorts of basic functions.

It's a "disservice to the law," Ellis said, "to suggest fraudulent behavior on the most tenuous evidence."

Spreitzer, the Democratic Assembly member, said he asked the Legislative Council for any case law supporting Gableman's bribery claim. He said there was none.

Kaardal's self-styled competency tests

A second major Kaardal and the Thomas More Society claim that landed in Gableman's report: that nursing home residents who lacked mental capacity to vote had cast absentee votes — a practice they call "voter abuse."

In four cases, Gableman alleged that residents who had been found legally incompetent to vote had cast ballots, which raises questions about the validity of those votes.

But in other cases, Gableman relied on Kaardal's personal assessment to question a voter's competence.

That is not how Wisconsin law works, however. Only a judge in the context of a guardianship proceeding can determine whether a person has the mental capacity to cast a ballot, according to the Wisconsin Elections Commission. Being placed under guardianship on its own does not remove a person's right to vote. And, "state law does not allow for the right to vote to be taken away, even by family members, without such an adjudication," the elections agency said.

Gableman included videos of Kaardal interviewing nursing home residents along with their guardians — who are also Kaardal's clients — in his presentation to the Assembly elections committee in March. He said he got his clients' approval before sharing them.

Kaardal asked about a preferred choice between hypothetical candidates — one who wanted to raise taxes and another who didn't — as well as questions about what happens on Election Day and how a winner is picked. The befuddled residents often stumbled over their answers to Kaardal's sometimes long-winded questions.

A video screenshow shows Erick Kaardal speaking with Sandra Klitzke, seated in a wheelchair, while another person stands next to them, in a room with a television, tables and other furniture.

Erick Kaardal interviews nursing home resident Sandra Klitzke in a screenshot from a WisEye video played at a March 1, 2022 Wisconsin Assembly elections committee hearing. Klitzke's last name is misspelled on the video. (Credit: Courtesy of WisEye)

Gableman described Kaardal's test as "questions that are put out by the elections boards to help determine whether someone has the acuity to be able to make a knowing choice for voting. He's not making these questions up. They're standardized questions to determine if a potential voter has the mental capacity to vote."

But Kaardal described them much differently. He told Wisconsin Watch he found the questions online in a law review or medical journal article. While on the phone with a reporter, Kaardal searched for the article and its questions online, but could not find them.

"I don't even know if I spent the time saving it, but I should have," he said. "... I found it online. If I searched a little bit more I could find it. But if you just put in 'competency assessment test for voting,' I think you'll end up finding where I found it.”

The top Google search results for "competency assessment test for voting" include a Wikipedia article describing literacy tests that some jurisdictions used to disenfranchise Black voters for a long stretch of American history. Such tests have been banned for more than 50 years, since the passage of the Voting Rights Act.

'Their voting rights must be upheld'

Barbara Beckert, of the advocacy group Disability Rights Wisconsin, picked apart Kaardal's self-styled competency examination during the Wisconsin Elections Commission meeting in March.

"Wisconsin does not require or allow voting tests that people must pass in order to vote — nor should they," Beckert said. "No voter in Wisconsin has ever (been) asked this type of question, and voters are never asked to explain why they vote for a particular candidate."

Federal law requires Medicaid-certified long term care facilities to support residents who want to vote, she said, "And we're concerned that as a result of these investigations, care facility staff are now afraid to assist residents with voting."

Beckert added that "It's discriminatory and unconscionable to disenfranchise Wisconsin citizens simply because they live in a care facility. Their voting rights must be upheld."

After Gableman showed the videos during the March 1 hearing, Spreitzer said he submitted an open records request for the full, unedited version of the interviews. He was told Gableman didn't have them — raising yet more questions, Spreitzer said, about the role of Kaardal and the Thomas More Society in the investigation.

The nonprofit Wisconsin Watch collaborates with WPR, PBS Wisconsin, other news media and the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. All works created, published, posted or disseminated by Wisconsin Watch do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of UW-Madison or any of its affiliates.

https://www.exposedbycmd.org/2022/03/28/revealed-the-biggest-voter-suppressor-youve-never-heard-of/

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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,the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) has learned.

Based in Maryland, the Diana Davis Spencer Foundation (“the Foundation”) is led by its namesake, the daughter of Shelby Cullom Davis, 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.

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.

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In addition, the Foundation’s IRS filings for those three years detail $24 million in contributions to DonorsTrust, 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.

Here are the voter suppression groups the Foundation supported between 2018 and 2020, presented in descending order of funding granted:

Lawyers Democracy Fund — $625,000

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

American Civil Rights Union — $550,000

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.

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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.” 

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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.

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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.

Judicial Education Project / The 85 Fund — $450,000

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).

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.

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.

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.

Blackwell and HEP’s Executive Director Jason Snead, 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.

American Legislative Exchange Council — $440,000

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.

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.

“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.

In April 2021, The New York Times published details of a $24-million Heritage Action for America voter suppression plan (obtained by Documented) that described its efforts to work closely with ALEC to move legislation in “crucial states.”

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) 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.

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.

“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.”

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.”

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.

Public Interest Legal Foundation — $300,000

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.”

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.

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.

Blackwell, Spakovsky, and insurrectionist John Eastman are also PILF board members.

Texas Public Policy Foundation — $300,000

In 2019 and 2020, the Foundation distributed grants totaling $300,000 to the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) for “election integrity.”

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.

TPPF also spread misinformation about the For the People Act, the federal voter protection legislation that has stalled out in Congress.

Thomas More Society — $250,000

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.

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.

TMS is a proponent of the election subversion strategy of giving state legislatures (such as in Michigan) the ability to certify electors.

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.

Eagle Forum Educational and Legal Defense Fund — $200,000

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.

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.

Virginia Institute for Public Policy — $160,000

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.”

The organization’s latest publicly available IRS filing (2019) details the smallest total revenue—$141,501—among all of the Foundation’s grant recipients.

On its website, Virginia Institute claims its Tuesday Morning Group“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.

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.

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.”

As a guest on Mitchell’s Who’s Counting podcast,Taylor and her host recently touted the efficacy of the Virginia model in achieving voter suppression goals.

Abby Spencer Moffat, the Foundation’s CEO, sits on VIPP’s board of directors.

Judicial Watch — $150,000

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.

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.”

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.”

Judicial Watch has also litigated to purge state voter rolls and filed amicus briefs supporting voting rights restrictions.

Americans of Faith — $100,000

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.

Its latest publicly available IRS filing (2019) shows that it brought in $1.1 million for the mission of “voter education.”

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.

FreedomWorks Foundation — $100,000

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.

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.

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.”

Ballotpedia — $50,000

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.

The group publishes pages on “election integrity” and “voter suppression” that may be part of the Foundation-funded content project.

About David Armiak