drop box vote

10 22 premature nope --> PRIMARY

SET ON FIRE 11 24

see voter suppression

see 2000 mules BS big lie

see miller 3 afl

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an 11 25

A Republican lawmaker’s plan to regulate drop boxes and give Wisconsin’s clerks more time to process absentee ballots ran into obstacles last week, including skepticism from fellow Republicans and a rival GOP bill to ban drop boxes entirely.

*Votebeat is a nonprofit news organization reporting on voting access and election administration across the U.S.Sign up for Votebeat Wisconsin’s free newsletter here.

The cool reception for Rep. Scott Krug’s ideas, especially to let clerks process ballots on the Monday before an election, underscores the GOP’s persistent internal divide over election policy in Wisconsin, with advocates of reforms long sought by election officials of both parties running into distrust fueled by conspiracy theories and misinformation. Last week, the resistance appeared strong enough to stall or complicate efforts by Republicans who aim to address clerks’ needs and craft workable policy that can gain Democratic Gov. Tony Evers’ support.

That split was on full display at a Nov. 4 hearing of the Assembly Elections Committee, chaired by Rep. Dave Maxey.

Krug, a former committee chair who championed the draft bill to regulate drop boxes, argued that his colleagues should adopt a “reality-based” mindset with their approach to drop boxes. Liberals, he said, control the governor’s office, making it all but certain that GOP Rep. Lindee Brill’s bill to ban drop boxes would get vetoed by Evers.

To that, Brill responded: “I am a believer in God and a follower of Jesus Christ, so do I think there’s a chance that [Evers] would change his mind and sign this into law? Sure. But I’m taking this on because our Republican president believes this is the direction we should be heading.”

In response to questions, she dismissed an Associated Press survey of election officials that found no widespread fraud from drop boxes in the 2020 presidential election that could have affected the results, saying she wasn’t sure she considered the AP a valid source.

“You and I find truth in different spots,” she told a Democratic lawmaker.

During the hearing, Maxey let others speak at length, including Peter Bernegger — a conspiracy theorist fined by the Wisconsin Elections Commission for making frivolous complaints — who echoed unfounded claims of widespread drop box fraud in Wisconsin.

When Krug scrutinized Brill’s proposal, though, Maxey interrupted him, leading a visibly frustrated Krug to ask him to “give me the last sentence, like we’ve let others have.”

Republicans have slim majority, divided caucus

This clash between the two views on election policy “is longstanding and is not going to be resolved anytime soon,” said Barry Burden, a UW-Madison political science professor and founder of the Elections Research Center. “Right now, it seems like neither path is really working.”

Assembly Republican leaders typically only advance bills that have 50 GOP votes, enough to pass without Democratic support. They once held 64 of 99 seats, nearly a supermajority, but now have just 54, meaning they can afford to lose only four GOP votes to advance legislation. That math, and the internal distrust, make passing even modest reforms difficult. Unless they can rally the more skeptical voices in their caucus, Burden said, Republicans have to be willing to cross the aisle and court Democratic votes.

Maxey, who co-authored Brill’s bill, told Votebeat that drop boxes “are about as effective for election integrity as a mask is at preventing COVID,” an analogy that left his meaning muddled: Drop boxes in Wisconsin have never been proven to be a means for widespread fraud, whereas masks have been shown to slow the spread of COVID-19.

Maxey said his worries weren’t “wild conspiracy theories” but came from past ballot issues in Madison, though none of those involved drop boxes. He told Votebeat that he fears tampering and that voters using drop boxes might be unable to fix ballot errors.

Burden noted that valid ballots deposited in drop boxes are like any other absentee ballot, and contain voters’ and witnesses’ information, which helps prevent fraud.

Monday processing proposal in doubt

Krug’s draft proposal to let local clerks begin processing absentee ballots on the Monday before an election was a change long sought by election officials to help speed up the reporting of results, but blocked by a few conservative lawmakers. Krug and other GOP leaders hoped his proposal could win them over because it was part of a broader package that included measures conservatives want, including an explicit ban on clerks fixing, or curing, errors on absentee ballot envelopes, and the stricter regulation of drop boxes.

But at a hearing on Nov. 6, Krug conceded that both the preprocessing and drop box proposals were in jeopardy because of GOP opposition. Those measures were stripped out of the package after pushback from Brill, Maxey, and other conservatives, who released their own bill to ban drop boxes entirely.

Maxey told Votebeat that he would likely give a Monday processing proposal a hearing in his committee but would vote against it — adding that he knows other Assembly Republicans are against it, too.

Krug — who previously told Votebeat that he “would use every little ounce of political capital effort created on elections to get Monday processing done” — appeared to downplay the measure’s importance, saying it was only an issue in Milwaukee, where late-night reporting of election results often leads to conspiracy theories about fraudulent ballot dumps.

Clerks elsewhere disagree that the problem is so localized. Marathon County Clerk Kim Trueblood, a Republican, told Votebeat she hopes Krug “hasn’t entirely given up” on the Monday processing proposal, though “that’s what it sounds like for this session, at least.”

Krug also blamed its failure so far on the governor’s office, which he said received the draft Monday processing proposal months ago but never got back to him.

“Scott Krug has taken enough you-know-what in every community in the state of Wisconsin for being bold on this issue and saying we have to do it,” Krug said. “I need partners.”

*Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Alexander atashur@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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RSS

Election denial groups and right-wing media figures are talking about their election interference plans as voting begins

Election denial groups have publicly talked about their plans to challenge voter rolls, monitor ballot drop boxes, and recruit and train poll workers to be a “spy in the camp” on Election Day

Written by Payton Armstrong

Research contributions from Media Matters Staff

Published 10/31/24

Election denial groups and some right-wing media figures have been discussing their plans to interfere in the 2024 voting process, building on previous efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election and interfere with the 2022 midterm election.

Leading up to the 2024 presidential election, election denial groups and right-wing media figures have discussed their plans to challenge citizens’ right to vote, vowed to monitor drop boxes, claimed to be recruiting and training poll workers, launched apps to track supposed fraud on Election Day, and encouraged activists to monitor for noncitizen voting.

In the 2022 midterm elections, right-wing media supported election denial groups recruiting poll workers and poll watchers and asking for volunteers to monitor ballot drop boxes. These efforts had seemingly grown out of conspiracy theories from former President Donald Trump and right-wing media that the 2020 election was rife with voter fraud and had been stolen, culminating in a violent attempt to overturn the election by storming the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

As voting begins for the 2024 election, “election officials across the country are ramping up their security measures at polling places,” as reported by NBC News, including “beefing up law enforcement presence to donning bulletproof vests to deploying drones for surveillance amid an increasingly hostile environment.”

Right-wing groups and media figures are encouraging challenges to voter rolls, including asking supporters to flag “suspicious voter[s]” with “Hispanic-sounding last names”

• • Election denial group True the Vote has urged followers to submit voter-eligibility complaints by using an app, resulting in thousands of challenges to voter registrations.True the Vote is run by Catherine Engelbrecht and Greg Phillips, who regularly promote the group’s activities in right-wing media. CNN reported: “One of the main drivers of the fruitless challenges is a conservative Texas-based nonprofit group called True the Vote, an election-monitoring organization that has long peddled debunked voter-fraud theories. The group’s founder, Catherine Engelbrecht, has called on followers to help clean voter rolls by using an app called IV3 that enables users to research voter data and submit voter-eligibility challenges to local election offices.” CNN, [7/29/24; Media Matters, 1/26/23]

• • Cleta Mitchell — who leads the Election Integrity Network and has appeared frequently in right-wing media to promote the group and its activities, and fearmonger about noncitizen voting — was reportedly involved in helping the development of EagleAI for mass voter challenges in various states.As reported by Documented, “Eagle AI draws from public data sources like voter files and newspaper obituaries to build a dashboard for activists to conduct their own ‘list maintenance’ and generate potentially thousands of challenges to voter eligibility with a few clicks.” Documented, [8/17/23; Media Matters, 6/14/24, 10/2/24]

• • Mitchell’s Election Integrity Network, a coalition of election-denying activists, has reportedly been recruiting people at the state level to “target the registrations of potentially left-leaning voters.”The New Republic reported that the coalition “recruits activists at the state level and trains them to target the registrations of potentially left-leaning voters in an effort to tilt the balance of the electorate toward conservative-leaning voters.” The New Republic, [10/16/24]

• • In the last several months, the Ohio chapter of Election Integrity Network has reportedly “mounted a statewide effort to kick thousands of registered voters off the rolls in the runup to the 2024 election.”According to local reporting, at least 13 counties “have received thousands of voter registration challenges, the vast majority of which have been rejected” and that “most of those challenges, the officials say, come from locals identifying themselves as members of the Election Integrity Network.” Cleveland.com, [9/25/24]

• • On CBS News, the head of the North Carolina chapter of the Election Integrity Network encouraged people to flag “Hispanic-sounding last names” for potential voter roll challenges. In an interview with the network, James Womack, head of the North Carolina Election Integrity Team, discussed creating a “list of suspicious voters” who may be on the voter rolls in North Carolina. CBS also aired a clip of a video in which Womack also said, “If you’ve got folks that you, that were registered and they’re missing information … and they were registered in the last 90 days before the election, and they've got Hispanic-sounding last names, that probably is, is a suspicious voter.” Media Matters, [10/22/24; CBS News, 10/21/24]

• • On Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, the founder of Fight Voter Fraud, Linda Szynkowicz, offered the MAGA audience voter data for mass eligibility challenges in Georgia. “Go to our website, download the request data so you can have a list of people in your county that we believe should not be voting in your county, and you can actually hang on to those,” she said, adding, “Do your due diligence. We’ll even teach you how to do it.” Media Matters, [10/7/24]

• ## Right-wing groups and media figures have been recruiting and training poll workers and observers

• • Election Integrity Network claims to have recruited tens of thousands of “election integrity patriots” and holds regular online coordinating calls. The Guardian, [10/21/24]

• • Right-wing group Judicial Watch announced that “as part of its ongoing election integrity efforts, its trained observers will monitor polling sites in Wisconsin on November 5.”Judicial Watch President and podcast host Tom Fitton was quoted in the press release saying, “Judicial Watch’s teams will monitor the election in Wisconsin to expose and deter any fraud.” Per Democracy Docket, Judicial Watch is “a right-wing legal group that’s constantly filing all manner of litigation against the government — Freedom of Information Act lawsuits, challenges to immigration policy, attempts to thwart environmental actions and any other issue that riles up Republicans. ‘Judicial Watch’s strategy is simple: Carpet-bomb the federal courts with Freedom of Information Act lawsuits,’ the New York Times wrote of the organization in a 2016 profile.” Judicial Watch, [10/22/24; Democracy Docket, 6/11/24]

* Tea Party Patriots, which sponsored Trump’s January 6 rally, is apparently doing “poll watcher trainings specifically in Georgia” in collaboration with Election Integrity Network.On War Room, election denial figure and Tea Party Patriots founder Jenny Beth Martin claimed her group is also partnering with Turning Point Action and America First Works on door knocking efforts. Martin also described the groups’ efforts in Georgia in a separate interview, saying they are “making sure that poll watchers are recruited and trained.” Media Matters, [9/9/24, 1/30/24]

• • Right-wing group VoterGA — co-founded by Garland Favorito, who has fundraised for his election denial organization during appearances on a far-right show — collaborated with the Election Integrity Network on poll-watcher training.CNN reported that “VoterGA, a nonprofit led by a computer consultant-turned-activist named Garland Favorito who has a long history of promoting debunked conspiracy theories, has made inroads with some election officials.” In a phone interview with CNN, “Favorito argued that he and his group are fighting for election integrity and that some state and local officials have sought to cover-up elections malfeasance in Georgia. As an example, he cited his inability to review ballots from the 2020 election,” ignoring that state law requires for the ballots to be sealed after the elections. CNN, [10/9/24; Media Matters, 6/14/23]

• • On the Christian nationalist program FlashPoint, Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump recruited poll watchers and promoted the RNC’s new “election integrity division” to “ensure that there is no funny business” in the election.During the appearance, Trump said that the RNC is working to stop “3:00 a.m. dumps” and “ballots in suitcases that miraculously appear places,” and she called on the audience to “volunteer to be part of our team, ballot harvest with us where it's legal, you know, be a poll watcher, be a poll worker.” Media Matters, [5/30/24]

• • Christian nationalist “prophet” and podcast host Lance Wallnau has been traveling the country on his “Courage Tour” recruiting conservative Christians as poll workers to be a “spy in the camp” on Election Day.During Wallnau’s tour — which recently got a boost from Trump’s running mate Sen. JD Vance (R-OH) — attendees were directed to a group called Lion of Judah, which ProPublica reported “offers a free course titled ‘Fight the Fraud,’ with modules detailing poll workers’ basic duties and helping people find their local elections offices so they can apply as well as email templates to streamline the process.” Notably, Wallnau has already declared that “there will be cheating” in the 2024 election. ProPublica, [10/16/24; Media Matters, 9/27/24]

• • A Turning Point Action member used QAnon supporter Melody Jennings’ podcast to recruit poll workers in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.The member, Brett Galaszewski, urged Jennings’ audience to become poll workers and get involved with the Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, Republican Party’s “Election Integrity Committee.” Jennings is an election denier who participated in election denial efforts during the 2022 elections by coordinating attempts to intimidate voters at ballot drop boxes. Jennings even took credit for armed men who staked out drop boxes in Arizona. Media Matters, [11/15/23; The New York Times, 11/1/22]

• • Right-wing “Stop the Steal” activist Scott Presler, who has previously pushed the QAnon conspiracy theory, called on Donald Trump Jr.'s Rumble podcast audience to become poll workers and to investigate county voter rolls in Pennsylvania.Media Matters, [9/5/24, 1/30/23]

• ## True the Vote is planning to monitor ballot drop boxes for supposed fraud, including partnering with Steven Crowder and “working with sheriffs”

• • True the Vote claims to be planning to monitor ballot drop boxes in Michigan and Wisconsin with “24/7 streaming video” that will be “available for anyone.” On War Room, founder Catherine Engelbrecht declared, “This cycle, we do intend to have eyes on those drop boxes with surveillance footage.” Media Matters, [9/5/24]

• • True the Vote also claims it “is reaching out to sheriffs across the country” to monitor ballot drop boxes.In different media interviews, Engelbrecht claimed to be working with “three very influential sheriffs” in Wisconsin and said the organization is offering local sheriffs “camera equipment” to monitor drop boxes and, in exchange, the public can livestream the footage to “see for themselves what’s happening.” Media Matters, [8/6/24]

• • YouTuber Steven Crowder is apparently “partnering” with True the Vote for “the scoop” from the group’s drop box monitoring.True the Vote claims it has been “setting up teams and schedules for drop boxes” to monitor “with a little handheld camera” in multiple states and says Crowder is “opening up” the organization’s efforts “to a whole new crowd.” Media Matters, [10/19/24]

• ## Right-wing groups have launched apps, hotlines, and websites for people to report supposed voter fraud and issues at the polls on Election Day

• • True the Vote launched a new app for users “to quickly report problems at the polls” and “document and report instances of suspected election fraud” to funnel to local law enforcement.True the Vote claims to be “working with sheriffs” in Wisconsin and plans to funnel reports of supposed “problems at the polls” from users of its new app. Media Matters, [9/12/24, 9/20/24, 8/6/24]

• • Election denial group The America Project launched an app “for people to hop on and report different things that they see that they know are illegal,” as described by the group’s Director of Rights & Freedoms, Amanda Freytes.The America Project was founded by former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne, who following the 2020 election, became one of the country’s biggest election denial funders. Twitter/X, [10/5/24; Media Matters, 1/26/23]

• • Right-wing group United Sovereign Americans launched a new “election complaint” webpage, where people can submit supposed voter fraud to authorities.Founder Marly Hornik has promoted the webpage on War Room. CNN, [10/23/24; Democracy Docket, 5/29/24]

• • Judicial Watch announced it “will run an Internet hotline for voters in all states to report suspicions of election and voter fraud.”The hotline’s poster asks people to send Judicial Watch a detailed email “if you witness any suspicious activity at your polling place, have issues with your voting machine, or witness voter fraud or intimidation.” Judicial Watch, accessed [10/23/24, 10/23/24]

* YouTuber Steven Crowder touted a plan to have “boots on the ground” on Election Day because “this already is election theft,” saying there will be a “live electoral integrity map” where his audience can “see any shenanigans going on” in real time.Crowder claimed there will be “investigative journalism units and team leaders, managers in every major swing city.” Crowder also said that he would be “partnering” with True the Vote for “Election Night,” and claimed that they “will have tens of thousands of volunteers” combined “watching hundreds of key polling locations and ballot drop boxes around the country.” Media Matters, [9/23/24; Truth Social, 10/28/24]

• ## Right-wing figures are also encouraging people to monitor for noncitizens voting, or registering to vote

• • During a so-called election integrity call, election denier Cleta Mitchell called on MAGA activists to watch their local Department of Motor Vehicles for noncitizen voter registration and distribute her group’s materials on the ground.Mitchell said: “There are things you can do in your local communities. Watching at your DMVs, watching - going to your election board, asking your local election officials what are you doing to ensure that noncitizen are not getting registered to vote and getting — we've got sample resolutions. We've got signs, you can download and leaflets you could hand out.” Media Matters, [10/8/24]

• • On a Rumble live stream, Election Integrity Network leader Kerry Toloczko said that “we don't want noncitizen voting,” and she offered materials for right-wing activists who are planning to monitor for noncitizen voting at the local level.Toloczko, who has also appeared on Newsmax to push baseless claims of noncitizen voting, said that their activists are “everywhere” trying to “suppress the people who are trying to vote unlawfully,” asserting, “We have activists, grassroots activists, so we're handing these [signs] out in churches, in parking lots, in voting centers.” Media Matters, [10/17/24, 10/18/24]

• • Wisconsin-based talk radio host Vicki McKenna urged her listeners to go to polling locations and “stand with very large signs that say in Spanish, ‘Noncitizens are not permitted to vote in the state of Wisconsin.’” McKenna warned of noncitizens voting and complained that “they don’t want you in the field. They don’t want you participating. They don’t want you observing elections.” 1310 WIBA,*The Vicki McKenna Show*, [10/18/24]

[### 'We are fed up': Ballot drop boxes are dividing neighbors in ...

CNN

https://www.cnn.com › 2024/10/16 › politics › drop-bo...](https://www.cnn.com/2024/10/16/politics/drop-box-wisconsin-presidential-election/index.html)

Oct 16, 2024 — In one conservative Wisconsin county, the sheriff appeared onstage at a Donald Trump campaign rally last week to brag about his efforts to ...

[### Clerks debunk the Dodge County sheriff's claim of 'zero' ...

TMJ4 News

https://www.tmj4.com › about-us › lighthouse › clerks-...](https://www.tmj4.com/about-us/lighthouse/clerks-debunk-the-dodge-county-sheriffs-claim-of-zero-ballot-drop-boxes-for-voters)

Oct 9, 2024 — Sheriff Dale Schmidt told the crowd "zero" drop boxes are being used in his county in the November election. Our Lighthouse team found that ...

[### Dodge County sheriff encouraged clerks not to use drop ...

WisPolitics

https://www.wispolitics.com › Archive](https://www.wispolitics.com/2024/dodge-county-sheriff-encouraged-clerks-not-to-use-drop-boxes-this-fall/)

Sep 11, 2024 — Dodge County's Republican sheriff pressed three municipal clerks not to use absentee ballot drop boxes this fall, warning it could create the appearance of ...

[### Drug Drop Box | Dodge County, WI

Dodge County, WI (.gov)

https://www.co.dodge.wi.gov › community-programs](https://www.co.dodge.wi.gov/departments/departments-p-z/sheriff/community-programs/drug-drop)

This allows citizens the opportunity to deposit unused, unwanted or expired prescription drugs. The box is checked daily and the contents are collected and ...

[### Dodge County clerks backtrack on using drop boxes after ...

WPR

https://www.wpr.org › news › dodge-county-clerks-back...](https://www.wpr.org/news/dodge-county-clerks-backtrack-on-using-drop-boxes-after-concerns-from-republican-sheriff)

Sep 9, 2024 — Sheriff Dale Schmidt cited 'concerns' and strongly encouraged clerks not to use drop boxes, which are again legal in *Wisconsin

Some town and village clerks in Dodge County were considering using absentee ballot drop boxes in the upcoming November presidential election. They changed course when the county’s Republican sheriff urged them not to, in order to prevent the perception of voter fraud.

Wisconsin election clerks were re-authorized to use absentee ballot drop boxes in July, when the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s liberal majority reversed a ban on absentee ballot drop boxes issued by the court’s previous conservative majority in 2022. The decision didn’t require clerks to use drop boxes, but it gave them the option for the first time in the two years.

According to emails obtained by WisPolitics, Republican Dodge County Sheriff Dale Schmidt reached out to three town and village clerks who he’d heard were considering using the receptacles. He told them while it was their right to use them, “I strongly encourage you to avoid using a drop box.”

In a phone interview with WPR, Schmidt said his email contained questions for the clerks about whether the boxes would be monitored by video cameras and how they’d ensure ballots were dropped off by voters and not someone else.

Schmidt said he wasn’t trying to stop the clerks from using them.

“They have the right to do that, but I wanted to raise those concerns so they can make their own independent decision,” Schmidt said. “I am not in favor of those, but of course, as I laid out in my emails to them, that’s their choice to make.”

Former President Donald Trump criticized the use of drop boxes following the 2020 election as he made a variety ongoing, unsupported claims that the election was rigged against him.

Schmidt, who has endorsed Trump for re-election, said he shares many of the same viewpoints on election security that Trump does.

“And I think opening ourselves up to having even the perception of election fraud opens up questioning the integrity of our election process,” Schmidt said. “I don’t think we want to do that. So, I think this is a good thing. And I think that Dodge County clerks are doing it the right way to maintain that integrity.”

Michelle Leisener, clerk for the Dodge County Town of Ashippun, told WPR using drop boxes “was a thought” for the November election but the town will not use them this fall.

Town of Hustisford Clerk Agnes Schulz told WPR that while she received an email from the Schmidt, the town board had already decided against accepting absentee ballots in a drop box used for collecting property tax payments “because of security purposes.”

“It’s unmanned,” Schultz said. “I mean, we have a camera on it, but it’s not physically manned. Just for security purposes, we are not using it.”

In a statement sent to WPR, Democratic Party of Wisconsin spokesman Joe Oslund called it “unfortunate that the Dodge County Sheriff is trafficking in Donald Trump’s conspiracy theories to cast doubts on our elections.”

“Ballot drop boxes are a convenient and secure way for folks in communities across the state to cast their vote, a reality that even (Republican Assembly Speaker) Robin Vos acknowledged back in 2020 before Trump lost,” said Oslund.

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Right-wing media and conspiracy theorists spread debunked viral video falsely claiming a Pennsylvania postmaster was illegally harvesting ballots

A county official confirmed that the “25-year veteran of the U.S. Postal Service,” who is now facing harassment, was “lawfully bringing ballots into the election office”

Written by Ilana Berger

Research contributions from Alex Kaplan

Published 10/30/24 MMA

• Right-wing media, conspiracy theorists and QAnon supporters amplified a viral video of a postal worker in Northampton County, Pennsylvania, to falsely accuse him of illegally harvesting ballots. The Northampton County executive told NBC News that the postal worker is now facing harassment as a result of the video, which he described as “incredibly stupid election misinformation.”

• ## Officials debunked a viral video from a QAnon social media account that claimed to show illegal ballot harvesting in Northampton County, Pennsylvania

• • On X (formerly Twitter) and Telegram, QAnon account MJ TruthUltra posted video of a “man spotted dropping off an Obscene amount of Ballots at Northampton, PA.”County Executive Lamont McClure told NBC News that the man shown in the video is “a 25-year veteran of the U.S. Postal Service and the acting postmaster, lawfully bringing ballots into the election office. NBC News verified his identity with a photograph posted on a USPS-linked website.” NBC additionally reported that “McClure said the post officer was already being harassed over the video,” which he also called “incredibly stupid election misinformation.” NBC News, [10/30/24; Telegram, 10/29/24; Twitter/X, 10/29/24]

• • In 2023, MJ TruthUltra posted on Telegram that MyPillow CEO and conspiracy theorist Mike Lindell's team had partnered with them to help promote an election denial summit.The account wrote, “I was contacted by an associate of Mike Lindell’s team to join in on a meeting with Mike Lindell to talk about this event” because Lindell “needs help from people like me who have an audience to register people to view this live streamed event he’s got planned.” Media Matters, [7/28/23]

• ## Right-wing media and conspiracy theorists made false claims about the video before it was fact-checked by NBC News

• • Infowars host Alex Jones shared the video on X, writing, “They don’t even try to hide it!”Twitter/X, [10/30/24]

• • Conspiracy theorist Scott Presler and QAnon influencer collective “Pepe Deluxe” also amplified MJ TruthUltra’s video on social media.Twitter/X, [10/29/24; Telegram, 10/29/24; Media Matters, 10/29/24, 10/22/24]

• • MAGA commentator Rogan O’Handley, known online as “DC Draino,” wrote in a now-deleted post that the video “caught an illegal ballot mule in the act in PA.”Twitter/X, [10/29/24]

IFrame Content

• • Right-wing conspiracy theorist Tara Bull wrote, “Something tells me that guy dropping off the huge bin of ballots after hours in Pennsylvania works for a 3 letter agency.” Twitter/X, [10/30/24]

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AN 10 24

'Attack on democracy': Ballot drop boxes in Washington and Oregon set on fire

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an 10 24

An interview between CNN host Jim Acosta and Georgia Republican Party Chairman Josh McKoon became unusually confrontational when the latter refused to admit the 2020 election was conducted fairly.

On Thursday, Acosta... to talk about early voting in the Southern battleground state with Election Day looming in less than two weeks. But their conversation grew testy when McKoon asserted that the prominence of ballot drop boxes led to "irregularities" in the Peach State during the 2020 election, which former President Donald Trump narrowly lost.

"I can't let you go on too long because you're saying there are voting irregularities," Acosta interjected. "The Republican secretary of state Brad Raffensberger said that the election in 2020 was fair and square and that Joe Biden won. You dispute that still?"

READ MORE:**CNN host laughs out loud at guest who said Trump had permission from Biden to call Putin**

McKoon pushed back and said that while he appreciated Raffensberger's position, he disagreed, once again pointing to a 2020 decision by the state's election board that allowed for more ballot drop boxes given the dangers of the Covid-19 pandemic. He noted that there had been "tremendous steps" taken by Georgia's Republican-dominated legislature and Republican Governor Brian Kemp to make sure Georgia's 2024 election was secure.

He added that it would be an "orderly election" in contrast to 2020, which Acosta again pushed back on. The CNN host asked McKoon to react to the, asking him to "find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have, because we won the state." McKoon characterized it as Trump simply asking Raffensberger to conduct an investigation into reports of convicted felons voting, which Acosta immediately challenged.

"Yeah, Josh, no. That's not what happened," Acosta said, as McKoon continued to attempt to talk over him. "Let's play it one more time just in case, maybe the Zoom is off or something. If we can, control room, let's play the sound one more time. Josh, let's listen to it one more time."

Acosta played the audio again despite McKoon's protests. He reminded his guest that in the full call, Trump talked about "shredding ballots" and "removing machinery." McKoon insisted that the former president was "talking about voters who should not have been allowed to vote in the election." He then pivoted into accusing Acosta of setting him up, saying he was "asked on this program to speak about early voting in Georgia in the 2024 election and President Trump visiting the state yesterday."

READ MORE:**'Ripe for abuse': GA elections chief now allowing anyone to cancel a voter's registration**

"This has been an entirely dishonest move to talk entirely about something that was not even discussed before I came on this program!" He said. "I know that y'all want to talk about 2020 because you know Trump's gonna win this election."

Acosta pointed out that the network was "well within our rights" to ask the Republican Party chair about whether he would accept the election result if Trump lost. He then asked again if he would accept the result of the Georgia election in November if it was unfavorable for Republicans.

"Look, I think this is a much more secure election than 2020. We don't have ballot drop boxes scattered randomly all over the state," McKoon said. Acosta then cut him off, reminding him that the state's Republican secretary of state "said that that was not the case and that it was a free and fair election and that it was secure."

"I'm just saying, Josh, what you're saying is horse crap," he said. "It's just horse crap."

READ MORE:[GOP voter fraud prosecutions only yielded 47 convictions out of tens of millions of ballots: report

Watch the exchange between Acosta and McKoon below, or by clicking this link.

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Tess OwenPolitics Oct 11, 2024 wired no lnx

Leaked Docs From Far-Right Militias Show History of Voter Intimidation Plans

“All the state leaders should be getting their people out … to watch for ballot stuffing,” wrote the leader of the American Patriots Three Percent militia. “Our nation depends on this."

Leaked Docs From FarRight Militias Show History of Voter Intimidation Plans

A trove of leaked internal messages and documents from the militia American Patriots Three Percent—also known as AP3—reveals how the group coordinated with election denial groups as part of a plan to conduct paramilitary surveillance of ballot boxes during the midterm elections in 2022.

This information was leaked to Distributed Denial of Secrets (DDoSecrets), a nonprofit that says it publishes hacked and leaked documents in the public interest. The person behind these AP3 leaks is an individual who, according to their statement uploaded by DDoSecrets, infiltrated the militia and grew so alarmed by what they were seeing that they felt compelled to go public with the information ahead of the upcoming presidential election.

Election and federal officials have already voiced concern about possible voter intimidation this November, in part due to the proliferation of politically violent rhetoric and election denialism. Some right-wing groups have already committed to conducting surveillance of ballot boxes remotely using AI-driven cameras. And last month, a Homeland Security bulletin warned that domestic extremist groups could plan on sabotaging election infrastructure including ballot drop boxes.

Devin Burghart, president and executive director of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, says that AP3’s leaked plans for the 2022 midterms should be a warning for what may transpire next month. “Baseless election denial conspiracies stoking armed militia surveillance of ballot drop boxes is a dangerous form of voter intimidation,” Burghart tells WIRED. “The expansion of the election denial, increased militia activity, and growing coordination between them, is cause for serious concern heading into November. Now with voter suppression groups like True the Vote and some GOP elected officials targeting drop boxes for vigilante activity, the situation should be raising alarms.”

The leaked messages from 2022 show how AP3 and other militias provided paramilitary heft to ballot box monitoring operations organized by “The People’s Movement,” the group that spearheaded the 2021 anti-vaccine convoy protest, and Clean Elections USA, a group with links to the team behind the 2000 Mules film that falsely claimed widespread voter fraud. In the leaked chats, People’s Movement leader Carolyn Smith identifies herself as an honorary AP3 member.

AP3 is run by Scot Seddon, a former Army Reservist, Long Islander, and male model, according to a ProPublica profile on him published in August. That profile, which relied on the same anonymous infiltrator who leaked AP3’s internal messages to DDoSecrets, explains that AP3 escaped scrutiny in the aftermath of January 6 in part because Seddon, after spending weeks preparing his ranks to go to DC, ultimately decided to save his soldiers for another day. ProPublica reported that some members went anyway but were under strict instruction to forgo any AP3 insignia. According to the leaked messages, Seddon also directed his state leaders to participate in the “operation.”

“All of us have a vested interest in this nation,” Seddon said in a leaked video. “So all the state leaders should be getting their people out and manning and observing ballot boxes, to watch for ballot stuffing. This is priority. This goes against getting your double cheeseburger at mcdonalds … Our nation depends on this. Our future depends on this. This ain't no bullshit issue. We need to be tight on this, straight up.”

A flier using militaristic language shared across various state-specific Telegram channels lays out how this operation would work. With “Rules of Engagement” instructions, “Volunteers” are told not to interfere with anyone dropping off their ballots. If someone is suspected of dropping off “multiple ballots,” then observers are told to record the event, and make a note of the individual's appearance and their vehicle's license plate number. In the event of any sort of confrontation, they’re supposed to “report as soon as possible to your area Captain.”

“At the end of each shift, Patriots will prepare a brief report of activity and transmit it to [the ballot] box team Captain promptly,” the flier states.

The person who leaked these documents and messages says that these paramilitary observers masquerading as civilians will often have a QRF—quick reaction force—on standby who can “stage an armed response” should a threat or confrontation arise.

The goal of the “operation,” according to that flier, was to “Stop the Mules.”

“These are the individuals stuffing ballot boxes,” the flier says. “They are well trained and financed. There is a global network backing them up. They pick up fake ballots from phony non-profits and deliver them to ballot boxes, usually between 2400 hours and 0600 hours.” (This was the core conspiracy of 2,000 Mules; the conservative media company behind the film has since issued an apology for promoting election conspiracies and committed to halting its distribution).

Fears about widespread armed voter intimidation during the 2022 midterms—stemming from online chatter and warnings from federal agencies—never materialized in full. However, there were scattered instances of people showing up to observe ballot drops in Arizona. These individuals, according to the statement by the anonymous leaker in the DDoSecrets files, were not “lone wolves”—they were part of “highly organized groups who intended to influence the elections through intimidation.”

In one widely-publicized incident, two clearly armed people wearing balaclavas and tactical gear showed up in Mesa, Arizona, to conduct drop box surveillance. They were never identified, though a Telegram video on DDoSecrets shows AP3’s North Carolina chapter head Burley Ross admitting that one of them was part of his unit. Ross says that the individual was Elias Humiston, who had previously been conducting vigilante border surveillance. “I was well aware they were doing drop box observations,” said Ross. “I was not aware they were doing so in full kit.” Ross added that Humiston had since resigned from the group.

Seddon also addressed the “little incident in Arizona,” stressing the importance of maintaining clean optics to avoid scrutiny. “We had pushed for helping to maintain election integrity through monitoring the ballot boxes,” said Seddon, in a video message on Telegram. “We never told anyone to do it like that.”

:{The militia movement largely retreated from public view in the aftermath of the January 6 riot at the US Capitol in 2021. The high-profile implication of the Oath Keepers in the riot, which at the time was America’s biggest militia, thrust the broader militia movement into the spotlight. Amid intense scrutiny, stigma, and creeping paranoia about federal informants, some militias rebanded or even disbanded. But as WIRED reporting has shown, after a brief lull in activity, the militia movement has been quietly rebuilding, reorganizing, and recruiting. With AP3 at its helm, it’s also been engaging in armed training.}:

Election conspiracies have only continued to fester since 2022, and AP3 has been aggressively recruiting and organizing. Moreover, the rhetoric in the group has also intensified. “The next election won’t be decided at a Ballot Box,” wrote an AP3 leader earlier this year in a private chat, according to ProPublica. “It’ll be decided at the ammo box.”

“Every American has a right to go to the ballot box without fear and the authorities need to urgently learn the lessons of 2022—and the lessons contained in these documents—so they can prevent something even worse from happening in the coming weeks,” the infiltrator wrote in the DDoS statement.

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Doug Diny, mayor of Wausau, Wisconsin, was caught on video moving an "outdoor ballot drop box inside" earlier this week "while sporting a Department of Public Works jacket and hard hat," the Wausau Pilot and Review reports.

"I have huge concerns about this behavior, as there is no place for elected officials to manage, alter or tamper with drop boxes, whether they agree with their use or not," City Council President Lisa Rasmussen told the Wausau Pilot. "I have voiced my concerns to the mayor about his conduct, and requested he return the box and issue a public apology to the clerk and the community, as his actions violate the public trust and likely also the law."

The mayor, according to the report, "on Tuesday admitted he moved the drop box to his office on Sept. 22 and 'took a few photos to memorialize the action.'"

READ MORE:**'Voters won big': Wisconsin Supreme Court restores ballot drop boxes**

Although Rasmussen called for a public apology from the mayor, voting rights-focused nonprofit firm Law Forward staff attorney Scott Thompson told the news outlet "he would need more facts to before commenting on whether" Diny broke the law.

Furthermore, Thompson "said that 'what is clear is that in Wisconsin, it is illegal to impede or prevent the free exercise of the franchise during an election.'"

He emphasized, "You can’t do that."

READ MORE:**GOP Senate candidate’s business received millions from bank linked to Mexican drug cartel**

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election denier group True the Vote is planning to monitor ballot drop boxes with “24/7 streaming video” that will be “available for anyone”

Founder Catherine Engelbrecht: “This cycle, we do intend to have eyes on those drop boxes with surveillance footage”

Written by Alex Kaplan

Published 09/05/24

On Steve Bannon’s War Room, Catherine Engelbrecht — founder of the election denial organization True the Vote — claimed that the organization “intend[s]” to have “surveillance footage” for monitoring ballot drop boxes in states like Michigan and Wisconsin, making it “available for anyone who wants to see it 24/7.”

Back in 2022, Engelbrecht and True the Vote claimed that drop boxes were used for fraud in the 2020 presidential election in their debunked film 2000 Mules, which was created with Dinesh D’Souza and distributed by Salem Media. Salem later apologized for and retracted the film after settling a lawsuit a Georgia voter filed against the company, True the Vote, and D’Souza.

True the Vote has pushed election conspiracy theories for years, even partnering with QAnon figures to target an election software company.

In July, Engelbrecht seemingly revealed that True the Vote is aiming to monitor drop boxes during the 2024 election, claiming during media appearances that the group was reaching out to sheriffs to do so, including giving them “camera equipment.”

Then, during the September 4 episode of War Room, Engelbrecht reiterated the apparent plans to monitor drop boxes this election cycle, while emphasizing that her organization is aiming to provide “24/7 streaming video … for anyone who wants to see it.”

She also credited the organization’s “work that ultimately led to 2000 Mules” for revealing that “drop boxes were not being monitored, even though states like Wisconsin, like Michigan assured their population that they were.”

Video file

Video

CitationFrom the September 4, 2024, edition of Real America's Voice's War Room

PETER NAVARRO (GUEST HOST): Drop boxes, let’s face it. They’re the Achilles' heel of the whole election system right now. And a lot of that — your 2000 Mules kind of, I think, proved that. What are you doing, as an organization, to police those drop boxes? How can the posse help?

CATHERINE ENGELBRECHT (TRUE THE VOTE FOUNDER): Well, what we learned out of all of our work that ultimately led to 2000 Mules was that those drop boxes were not being monitored, even though states like Wisconsin, like Michigan assured their population that they were absolutely being monitored with surveillance cameras. That was not true.

And so, this cycle, we do intend to have eyes on those drop boxes with surveillance footage. And if everything goes as we hope, what you can expect from us is to see 24/7 streaming video with the support of people and procedures that will give us eyes on those drop boxes. And I don’t wanna go too much further into it except to say that there is a plan, and the goal is to make that video available for anyone who wants to see it 24/7.

And we’re very, very encouraged about that. Not only because it's going to give people an opportunity to see for themselves, but it will also have a deterrent effect to the bad actors that intended to exploit drop boxes thinking that they weren’t going to be called out. They definitely will be.

Related

Election denial organization True the Vote says it “is reaching out to sheriffs across the country” to monitor ballot drop boxes

08/06/24 2:02 PM EDT

2. ### How True the Vote cultivated relationships with QAnon influencers to target an election software company and serve as a pipeline to law enforcement

09/15/22 2:04 PM EDT

3. ### Salem Media retracts Dinesh D’Souza’s bogus voter fraud film 2000 Mules after two years of right-wing media circulation

06/05/24

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new democ docket

how-stephen-miller-is-using-america-first-legal-to-assail-voting-rights

when Stephen Miller, a notorious top advisor to former President Donald Trump, launched America First Legal (AFL) in April of 2021, he didn’t mince words about the nascent organization’s mission.

“For too long, conservative and traditionalist Americans have been outflanked, outspent, out-organized, and outmaneuvered by radical progressive legal organizations,” Miller wrote in a statement announcing the group’s launch. “Those looking to hold the new administration in Washington to account finally have their answer. Our self-imposed policy of legal disarmament is now over.”

In the last three years, Miller and AFL have made good on their promise to wage a legal war against all things progressive: the group has filed dozens of legal actions against “woke corporations,” civil rights, LGBTQ rights, abortion rights and just about any other cause championed by the left. These include a myriad of lawsuits against some of the world’s biggest corporations — like their lawsuit against Nike that alleges the company discriminates against white males, or their Mattel lawsuit that accuses the massive toy company of “promoting a radical LGBT+ agenda” — whose success rate is hard to measure.

As the New York Times put it in a recent profile of the group, “assessing its success rate is more complicated, partly because many of the group’s cases are still pending, while the [Equal Employment Opportunity Commission] does not publicize which complaints it investigates.”

But suing corporations, colleges and other organizations over “woke” policies is just part and parcel of AFL’s large-scale, well-funded legal operation. Apart from the buzzy lawsuits inspired by the latest right-wing bogeymen, Miller and his legal team have launched an all-out assault against President Joe Biden, suing the administration over its border and immigration policies, economic initiatives and Second Amendment restrictions.

More recently, and more concerning, AFL has quietly set their sights on challenging election and voting policies in Arizona and Pennsylvania — two key states whose election results could flip the overall presidential election one way or another. In Pennsylvania, the group filed lawsuits in 2022 challenging the use of dropboxes in Chester and Lehigh Counties. Though both lawsuits were eventually dismissed, they’re prime examples of AFL’s attempts to find opportunities to legally disrupt the elections process.

In Arizona, however, AFL is currently engaged in a legal pursuit challenging the election administration procedures in three key Arizona counties — Coconino, Maricopa and Yavapai. The lawsuit alleges that election officials in all three counties are violating numerous state laws and regulations concerning signature verification, voter registration cancellation and drop boxes, among other alleged election administration infringements.

The lawsuit caught the attention of two pro-voting groups — the Arizona Alliance of Retired Americans (AARA) and Voto Latino — who filed a motion to intervene and have the lawsuit dismissed. They’re serious allegations that, should their lawsuit succeed, could potentially disenfranchise two-thirds of Arizona voters, the groups warned.

The Right-Wing Answer to the ACLU

Adorned on the homepage of America First Legal’s website is a stern photo of Miller, Trump’s former advisor who allegedly has white nationalist ties and is said to be the mastermind behind some of the former president’s harshest immigration policies. Next to the photo is a quote from Miller, describing AFL as the “long-awaited answer to the ACLU” and promises “relentless litigation and oversight [to] America First, Last, and Always.”

For such lofty ambitions, AFL stacked its leadership with a rogue’s gallery of former Trump officials and prominent conservative figures when it launched in 2021, according to its founding year tax filing. In addition to Miller, there’s Gene Hamilton, a Department of Justice counselor during the Trump administration, former Acting U.S. Attorney General Matthew Whitaker, former Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought, Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI) CEO and President Ed Corrigan and CPI Chief Operating Officer Wesley Denton.

And then there’s former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, who’s been indicted in both Arizona and Georgia for his role in Trump’s plot to overturn the 2020 election. Both Denton and Meadows were no longer listed as key employees in AFL’s 2022 tax filing, though the organization added venture capitalist and failed Arizona U.S. Senate candidate Blake Masters as a director, who is listed as working for one hour a week with no compensation.

With such a deep roster of noted former Trump officials and well-connected right-wing figures, AFL has devoted its resources to delivering on its promise to be the right-wing answer to the ACLU. That includes its myriad lawsuits challenging the “woke” policies of corporations like Disney, Amazon, Meta and Target. But its main focus has been Biden, and the group has proved to be a thorn in the administration’s side, with a few key court wins that reversed a few important Biden policies.

The most notable lawsuit is one that AFL filed in 2021 against the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) over a debt relief program for minority farmers. A part of Biden’s American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 earmarked $4 billion in debt forgiveness for Black and Indigenous farmers, along with $1 billion set aside for training and technical assistance to Black and other farmers of color. But AFL sued the USDA over the policy, alleging that the policy discriminates against farmers by race. The lawsuit eventually led to an injunction that blocked eligible farmers from receiving debt relief payments.

Elsewhere, AFL has succeeded in suing to halt some Covid-19 relief funds specifically for women, veteran and minority business owners, as well as disbanding a Department of Education council created to facilitate the relationship between schools and parents.

To fund such a widespread legal effort isn’t cheap. In 2021, its first year of existence, AFL pulled in a little over $6 million in revenue, according to its tax filing for that year. That number ballooned to more than $44 million in 2022. Because AFL is registered as a 501c(3) nonprofit organization, it does not have to disclose its donors but, as Mother Jones reported, a majority of the group’s revenue that year — $27 million — came from a single donor: The Bradley Impact Fund, a major right-wing donor group that, over the years, has given more than a billion dollars to help fund conservative political efforts.

Setting Sights on Arizona

Of the hundreds of lawsuits and legal actions AFL filed in its three years of existence, it’s only been involved in four election-related lawsuits — the two drop box challenges in Pennsylvania, the Arizona lawsuit, and a denied petition in a lawsuit to ensure Pennsylvania’s new congressional districts were in place for the 2022 midterm elections. Which makes its current lawsuit in Arizona all the more interesting — and concerning

In early February, AFL filed a curious lawsuit in Maricopa County on behalf of the civic action nonprofit organization Strong Communities of Arizona, Inc. The lawsuit challengedthe county’s election administration procedures, alleging that election officials violated a number of state election laws and regulations.

Weeks after filing the lawsuit, AFL voluntarily dismissed it and filed an almost identical one, though broadening the scope to include Coconino and Yavapai Counties. Like the previous lawsuit, the new one alleged that election officials in all three counties violated state laws and regulations in their election administration procedures. The new lawsuit was filed in the more conservative Yavapai County instead of Maricopa County, a tactic known as “forum shopping” to increase the chances of a more favorable ruling.

According to AFL’s lawsuit, 55% of Arizona voters “believe it is likely that problems with the 2022 election in Maricopa County affected the outcome,” and that the 2022 election “was marred by ‘widespread failures’ and ‘technical problems’ that led to ‘the anger and frustration of voters who were subjected to inconvenience and confusion at voter centers’” in all three counties. The lawsuit then goes on to describe a litany of alleged election violations made by election officials in the three counties related to chain of custody procedures, ballot reconciliation, signature verification, ballot curing, voter registration cancellations and drop boxes.

The lawsuit also alleges that Maricopa County allowed voters to cast ballots in 2022 at illegal voting centers situated across Black and Hispanic neighborhoods, which put white and Native American voters at a disadvantage. Finally, the lawsuit claims officials in Coconino and Yavapai Counties “expressly stated they do not intend to follow the letter of the law in the administration of the 2024 election. The Coconino and Yavapai Defendants unlawfully maintain unstaffed drop boxes. They do not follow proper curing procedures. They have been unlawfully canceling voter registration of qualified Coconino and Yavapai County electors. And their signature verification procedures are unlawful. Such brazen violations of Arizona’s law undermine public confidence in the administration of elections.”

They’re big claims, but so far AFL has been somewhat unsuccessful in their attempt to have them heard in a more sympathetic court. On May 1, the Maricopa County defendants asked the Arizona Court of Appeals to let the lawsuit play out in their jurisdiction, rather than in Yavapai County. The appeals court granted the request, essentially thwarting AFL’s attempt to forum shop. But AFL appealed that decision to the Arizona Supreme Court, in hopes they’ll agree to let the lawsuit continue in Yavapai County.

So why all the effort just to get this lawsuit heard by a judge in the more conservative district? Because, should AFL succeed, it could have vast implications in the election come November. In their motion to intervene in AFL’s lawsuit, the pro-voting groups AARA and Voto Latino wrote that AFL’s claims are “wholly without merit” and “hinge on the groundless suggestion that Arizona county election officials are systematically violating state law, and they assume, based on nothing more than pure conjecture, that these invented problems will persist in the 2024 elections.”

It sets a dangerous precedent, the groups argue, and most concerningly, should AFL’s lawsuit prove successful, “many of Arizona’s most fundamental election procedures will be declared unlawful, enjoined, and significantly changed.”

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1/2 ad sponsors gone; trump crap poll 52% ppl have spoken

https://www.mediamatters.org/twitter/elon-musk-unilaterally-reinstating-banned-twitter-accounts-despite-assuring-civil-rights

https://www.mediamatters.org/dinesh-dsouza/election-denier-dinesh-dsouzas-reach-twitter-more-doubles-after-elon-musk-takeover

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Election denier Dinesh D'Souza's reach on Twitter more than doubles after Elon Musk takeover

WRITTEN BY MADELINE PELTZ

RESEARCH CONTRIBUTIONS FROM CARLY EVANS & KAYLA GOGARTY

PUBLISHED 11/22/22

Since Elon Musk took ownership of Twitter on October 27, the average interactions on tweets from election denier Dinesh D’Souza have more than doubled, expanding the reach of a major source of disinformation and debunked conspiracy theories about the integrity of the 2020 election.

According to a Media Matters review of D’Souza’s tweets, he earned nearly 3.9 million interactions on 681 posts — averaging over 5,700 interactions per post during the 24-day period since Musk’s acquisition (between October 28 and November 20). This is a 144% increase from the more than 2,300 average interactions per post on D’Souza’s 682 posts from the 24-day period prior to the takeover.

D’Souza is a long-time troll and filmmaker best known for his inflammatory smears of Democrats and the left and unhinged pro-Trump commentary. His recent movie 2000 Mules took the right-wing media by storm, promoted far and wide across the echochamber as a way to keep false claims over voter fraud in the 2020 election alive in the years since Trump lost. An unfettered platform on Twitter will allow these types of conspiracy theories to spread even more easily. Musk himself recently liked a tweet from D’Souza that praised the platform under his management and replied: “Correct.”

Elon Musk replies to Dinesh D'Souza

D’Souza noted his increased engagement on his podcast, saying, “My own traction on Twitter has just exploded in the last few weeks and the reason can be put down to two words: Elon Musk” adding, “We’re delighted. I’m a big fan of Elon Musk because I think that what he’s doing is great.”

Video CitationFrom the November 21, 2022 edition of The Dinesh D'Souza Podcast

Some of D’Souza’s most engaged tweets since October 28 have promoted election denial and conspiracy theories about the attack on Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s husband, Paul Pelosi.

On November 17, D’Souza quote-tweeted a video that edited together footage of voters dropping ballots at drop boxes in Maricopa County, Arizona, with quotes from failed gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake and reports from Fox News about Secretary of State Katie Hobbs’ victory in the race. The video, set over ominous music, seems to suggest that the voters casting their vote were involved in some sort of undefined election fraud based on the vote tally shifting from Lake to Hobbs.

D’Souza’s tweet received over 41,000 likes, and the video has 1.4 million views as of this writing.

The account D’Souza quote tweeted, @Lauren3veMemes, has a verified blue check mark from subscribing to Twitter Blue, a subscription service launched by Musk that has since been postponed. Despite this, the program has allowed right-wing extremists and conspiracy theorists an opportunity to purchase a verified platform.

D’Souza has also shared multiple conspiracy theories about the attack on Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s husband, falsely claiming the attacker was in his underwear when he was arrested, despite the allegation being retracted the same day it was first reported by a reporter for the local Fox affiliate in San Francisco, KTVU.

D’Souza’s tweet received nearly 50,000 likes. Another tweet falsely claiming Pelosi knew his attacker received over 83,000 likes.

D’Souza’s movie 2000 Mules, which pushed debunked conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, has been a critical touchstone for the right-wing movement since its release in May of this year. The movie, which was based on unsubstantiated “research” from the QAnon connected group True the Vote, inspired conspiracy theorist Melody Jennings to launch a voter intimidation effort to “monitor” drop boxes in Maricopa County ahead of the midterms. Some of her volunteers showed up with what appeared to be weapons and wearing tactical gear.

In less than a month, Elon Musk has driven away half of Twitter’s top 100 advertisers

11/22/22 4:40 PM EST

Elon Musk is unilaterally reinstating banned Twitter accounts, despite assuring civil rights groups and advertisers that he wouldn’t

11/22/22 1:13 PM EST

Dinesh D'Souza defends the Oath Keepers

https://www.rightwingwatch.org/report/conspiracy-theorists-with-badges-and-guns-pro-trump-sheriffs-vow-to-police-elections/

An Unholy Alliance of Election Deniers, ‘Constitutional Sheriffs,’ and Profiteering Propagandists Threatens Elections

Two years after former President Donald Trump began aggressively attacking the integrity of the 2020 election to justify his efforts to stay in power, an unholy alliance threatens the fair conduct of elections this fall and again in 2024. A national network of conspiracy theorists and right-wing political operatives have been joined by far-right sheriffs, whose determination has been fortified by lies about election fraud and fueled by a belief that they are waging a holy war against the forces of evil.

Richard Mack, a former Arizona county sheriff and former board member of the anti-government extremist organization Oath Keepers, summoned members and supporters of his Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association to a July gathering in Las Vegas, where he delivered an urgent message:  The country’s county sheriffs, Mack said, must launch investigations into voting fraud in the 2020 election—investigations that he thought could put Trump back in power.

“I would love for the investigations to prove that he indeed won the election, and I think at the time the Supreme Court would have to rule that he gets put back in because it was based on criminal activity,” Mack said. Though he wasn’t sure enough sheriffs would step up and “do their duty” to make investigations into the 2020 election happen, Mack urged sheriffs to take an active role in policing this year’s elections.

Mack is the founder and leader of the Constitutional Sheriffs and Peace Officers Association, which teaches local sheriffs that they are the supreme law enforcement officer in their counties, and that it is their duty to resist state and federal “tyranny.”

Mack and other MAGA-minded sheriffs like Mark Lamb turned their focus to policing elections after seeing “2000 Mules,” a film produced by right-wing propagandist Dinesh D’Souza and True the Vote leaders Catherine Englebrecht and Gregg Phillips, longtime promoters of election fraud conspiracy theories. Experts from across the political spectrum debunked the movie’s claims about voter fraud, but Trump and many of his supporters have embraced and promoted its inflammatory claims.

The Jan. 6 attack at the U.S. Capitol and evidence gathered by the House select committee investigating the insurrection have provided clear evidence that lies about election fraud can drive people to violence. In the weeks before Election Day, the embrace of “2000 Mules” and its inflammatory claims by public officials and far-right activists has already led to multiple reports of armed voter intimidation by vigilantes at ballot drop boxes. It could also increase the potential for violence at the polls.

“The involvement of ‘people with guns and badges’ to intimidate voters, and attempts to access voting equipment, could become ‘go-to-tactics,’” Bulwark editor Charlie Sykes told Reuters. “It doesn’t feel hyperbolic to say this is extremely dangerous.”

Armed Enforcers for the Anti-Democracy Coalition?

Mack founded CSPOA in 2009, a period of far-right ferment after the election of former President Barack Obama. As a leader of the self-described “constitutional sheriffs” movement, he has painted the federal government as authoritarian, referring to federal agencies as “the gestapo” and suggesting there were “some startling and irrefutable comparisons between Barack Obama and Adolph Hitler.”

Mack became a right-wing folk hero when he successfully challenged a Clinton-era federal gun law in the mid-90s. In 2014, Mack was back in the spotlight when he joined Cliven Bundy’s armed standoff with federal officials promoted a public relations strategy of putting women up front if shooting started.

Political scientists Emily Farris and Mirya Hollman recently conducted a survey of sheriffs’ attitudes and concluded that “Mack’s group has successfully radicalized a generation of sheriffs to believe that the office has seemingly unlimited power and autonomy.” That attitude is particularly dangerous among sheriffs, who compared to other law enforcement officials often have little structural oversight and accountability.

“We can and must take America back county by county and state by state,” Mack wrote in his 2014 book, “Are You a David?” That message is central to his current organizing efforts and one that he delivers to sheriffs and other law enforcement officials, often in state-sanctioned training sessions.

After the release of “2000 Mules” in May, Mack began shifting CSPOA’s focus from training sheriffs about his view of their constitutional superpowers to urging them to mobilize against “voter fraud.” He has described the movie’s oft-debunked claims as “overwhelming” and “compelling” evidence and said that “every sheriff and every chief of police in this country should be following up with a criminal investigation on the claims made in ‘2000 Mules.’”

Richard Mack speaks at CSPOA press conference on election fraud.

While Mack claims that his “2000 Mules”-inspired “election integrity” efforts are nonpartisan— he declared in a July press release that he simply wanted to know whether the claims made in “2000 Mules” are true and called for “honest, professional, and independent investigations”—it’s clear where his support lies when speaking to right-wing audiences. On a right-wing radio show in July, he called Trump’s defeat “a horrible, heinous crime” and “one of if not the worst crime committed against the American people in the last 100 years.”

“This is a coup against the American people,” Mack declared during a September appearance on another radio show. He recently told listeners of the right-wing Liberty Monks podcast that they “must vote for any Republican that we possibly can” to “punish the Democratic Party” and “stand against the destruction of America.”

Other sheriffs have taken up Mack’s call to investigate the 2020 presidential election and police future elections. One of Mack’s allies, Sheriff Calvin Hayden of Johnson County, Kansas, has “promoted unsubstantiated suspicions of election fraud,” according to the Kansas City Star. Hayden also offered to have his staff collect ballots from drop boxes, a move rejected by local officials as an attempt to interfere with the election.

Mack has also backed Dar Leaf, a sheriff in Berry County, Michigan, who is under investigation by the state’s attorney general over the conduct of his investigation of election equipment. Leaf has been represented by an attorney who was sanctioned by a federal judge for her role in Sidney Powell’s legal efforts to overturn the election results. Turning the system of governance on its head, Mack has said Leaf has the right to arrest state officials who interfered with his investigation.

From Insurrection to Elections: Sheriff Mark Lamb and Protect America Now

Mack isn’t the only far-right law enforcement official who was fired up by “2000 Mules.” Mark Lamb, sheriff of Arizona’s Pima County, was also drawn in by True the Vote’s conspiracy fraud claims. After viewing an interview that right-wing activist Charlie Kirk did with Engelbrecht—an interview that has been viewed more than 2 million times—Lamb contacted Englebrecht and brought his Protect America Now organization into a formal partnership with True the Vote. In October, Mack met with the Arizona Oathkeepers to talk about “election integrity” and the partnership being between Lamb and True the Vote, the Arizona Mirror reported.

An admirer of Mack and the CSPOA, Lamb built a national following through reality TV shows before turning energy toward Trumpian politics and the promotion of false voter fraud claims with the launch of his own organization in 2021.

Lamb founded Protect America Now in the month following the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. The insurrection, Lamb said, was not Trump’s fault, adding, “I don’t know how loud we have to get before they have to listen to us and know we will no longer tolerate them stripping our freedoms away.”

Describing Lamb as “charismatic and ambitious” in a 2021 profile, Politico reported that at ananti-vaccine rally that year, Lamb told supporters, “We’re going to find out what kind of patriots you are. We’re going to find out who is willing to die for freedom.”

Protect America Now’s website declares, “We support Sheriffs and law enforcement members that believe inGod, Family and Freedom.” The group asks for a monthly donation of $17.76 to “help us win this battle for the soul of America.” It promotes a hard-right line on immigration and other issues. In videos on Protect America Now’s YouTube channel, Lamb that crime is running rampant and “liberals want to take our guns.” In another, Lamb, “together, we are fighting back against the liberal takeover.”

In June, True the Vote and Protect America Now announced ProtectAmerica.Vote, a partnership that it said would “empower sheriffs” to “support election integrity” and would bridge the gap between voters and law enforcement to “ensure we have secure elections in this country.”

Engelbrecht has said she embraced the sheriffs after the FBI dismissed True the Vote’s allegations of voter fraud. “It’s like the lights went on,” she saidat a CSPOA event this July. “It’s the sheriffs. That’s who can do these investigations; that’s who we can trust; that’s who we can turn over information to.” True the Vote says its partnership with the constitutional sheriffs will include raising grant money and providing equipment to sheriffs to expand ballot drop box surveillance and investigate fraud claims.

Lamb claims his partnership with True the Vote is a nonpartisan effort, but he makes no secret of his support for Trump and Trump’s stolen election claims. Trump “loves the rule of law,” Lamb said at a Trump rally in Arizona this July. “We’re gonna make sure that we have election integrity this year,” Lamb pledged. “We will not let happen what happened in 2020.”

Local critics say Lamb has politicized law enforcement. Pinal County, where Lamb is sheriff, experienced ballot shortages during the August primary, and Lamb, true to character, that there might be something more at play than incompetence by election officials and vowed to investigate.

Inspired by Lies: ‘2000 Mules’ as Political Warfare

Right-wing filmmaker and author D’Souza describes his propaganda movies as weapons of political and spiritual warfare. By that measure, the “2000 Mules” movie has proven itself effective in mobilizing Trump’s troops.

Far-right wing media have boosted Dinesh D’Souza’s “2000 Mules” even though its claims have been widely debunked.

In “2000 Mules,” D’Souza dramatized claims made by Engelbrecht and Phillips that liberal nonprofits had mobilized “ballot harvesting” operations to stuff drop boxes with illegal votes. But for all the wild hype about their use of mobile device geolocation data and security camera footage from ballot drop boxes, election experts have repeatedly said that there’s essentially no there there. Even former Trump administration Attorney General William Barr dismissed the movie’s claims as laughable in testimony before the House Select Committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection.

The movie’s claims have also been declared bogus by experts in cell phone tracking technology and by election officials. As critics have pointed out, despite all the data, footage, and money available to the producers, the film does not show a single documented instance of the kind of fraud it claims to expose. Georgia election officials tracked down one person the movie accused of being a “mule” and determined that the person was depositing his own ballot and his family members’ ballots, as permitted by law. On Oct. 26, a Georgia voter sued D’Souza, Englebrecht, Phillips, and True the Vote for wrongly accusing him of casting illegal votes.

Among the other demonstrably false claims in the movie was that True the Vote’s geolocation data was so accurate that it helped solve a murder case.

But MAGA world activists primed to believe Trump’s lies and conspiracy theories ate it up. Trump himself hosted a premiere for the film at Mar-a Lago in May. Many Republican officials and proponents of election conspiracies like MyPillow founder Mike Lindell have joined Trump in promoting the film and its claims.

As the film took MAGA world by storm, it came to the attention of far-right militias, too. It was cited by Lions of Liberty, an Arizona “preparedness” group connected to the far-right Oath Keepers that is organizing armed surveillance of ballot boxes, and by Matt Shea, a far-right former state legislator known for his handbook on “biblical warfare,” who is organizing similar efforts in his state.

The release of the book version of “2000 Mules” was delayed at the last minute by the publisher after it had been printed and sent to bookstores containing potentially libelous accusations against several nonprofit groups it accused of mobilizing voter fraud. Before a toned-down version was released, Engelbrecht and Phillips distanced themselves from the book, saying they were looking ahead to future elections and their work with sheriffs.

Before ‘2000 Mules’: True the Vote’s History of Election Fraud Conspiracies

True the Vote is well known among voting rights experts for its long history of promoting voter fraud conspiracy theories and supporting actions to restrict voting.

“True the Vote and groups like it are well-documented voter intimidation scams,” former Harris County Clerk and current Houston mayoral candidate Chris Hollins told Texas Monthly this summer. “They’re created to amplify conspiracy theories, funded by wealthy right-wing activists, to tie the hands of election administrators and embolden partisan poll watchers.”

Sean Morales-Doyle of the Brennan Center points to True the Vote’s “long history of anti-voter conduct, including orchestrating mass challenges to voters,” some as recent as the 2021 Georgia runoff elections.

True the Vote leaders Engelbrecht and Phillips—business and reportedly romantic partners—have profited from unproven claims of voter fraud. The organization has been the subject of multiple investigations and exposés revealing their repeated failure to make good on outlandish claims while funneling money raised by their nonprofit group into their own pockets via loans and payments to for-profit companies they run.

True the Vote was founded after the 2008 election and grew out of a local Tea Party organization in Houston, Texas, called the King Street Patriots, which was accused of conducting “1960s style” voter intimidation during the 2010 election cycle.

For the past decade, True the Vote has promoted alarmism about voter fraud and resisted voting rights protections. It falsely claimed, for example, that the Obama administration was intentionally registering noncitizens to vote and charged that renewing the Voting Rights Act of 1965 would encourage “race-based segregation.” As “voter fraud” and “election integrity” became right-wing justifications for voter suppression, True the Vote pulled in money from right-wing funders and activist groups, including the Bradley Foundation, Donors Trust, the Judicial Confirmation Network, and State Policy Network.

True the Vote’s Catherine Engelbrecht railed against a bill she said would “blow up our elections” in a March 2020 YouTube video.

When Trump was elected in 2016 while losing the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes, Phillips stroked Trump’s ego by claiming that Phillips could verify that 3 million noncitizens cast votes in the election. While Trump touted the baselessand repeatedly debunked claim that he was the actual popular vote winner, True the Vote never released any evidence to back him up.

Though True the Vote claims that its so-called “election integrity” work is nonpartisan, the group aggressively promotes the interests of right-wing Republican candidates. In 2018, a New Jersey judge decided not to renew a 1981 ban on the Republican Party recruiting soldiers and cops as poll watchers to intimidate Black voters. True the Vote saw this as an opportunity. At a 2020 gathering of the Council for National Policy, a secretive network of influential right-wing and far-right leaders, Englebrecht touted True the Vote’s “Continue to Serve” initiative, which she said would recruit retired military and law enforcement as poll watchers. One participant suggested it would be especially useful in “inner city” and Native American precincts.

True the Vote’s credibility has been challenged by some on the right, even by other Big Lie and voter suppression advocates. After Trump’s defeat in 2020, True the Vote officials took $2.5 million from Fred Eshelman, a Trump-supporting billionaire who believed that the group was going to use state-level election data to prove Trump’s fraud claims in court. When they seemingly did little more to overturn the election than pay piles of cash to their companies and their lawyer, right-wing movement consigliere James Bopp, for a few short-lived lawsuits, Eshelman sued in an unsuccessful effort to get his money back.

Conspiracy Theories as Spiritual Warfare

Just as Christian nationalist ideology and the belief that keeping Trump in office was a sacred cause energized the Jan. 6 insurrection and suffused much of the MAGA movement, True the Vote’s leaders and their far-right sheriff allies rely on spiritual warfare rhetoric to justify their actions and motivate their followers.

Before the 2020 election, True the Vote partnered with Intercessors for America, a group of pro-Trump “prayer warriors,” to spread right-wing talking points about the threat of voter fraud. On an online prayer call in May 2020, Englebrecht called the struggle over expanded voting by mail a “spiritual battle” for “control of the free world.”

After the release of “2000 Mules,” Intercessors for America claimed that the movie documented “an indisputable and alarming gravy train for fraudulent votes.” Intercessors for America defended Engelbrecht and Phillips from critics, portraying them as victims of persecution.

This August, True the Vote held a gathering focused on voter fraud that it called “The Pit,” a name taken from a biblical passage that says God will grant his disciples relief from days of trouble “until a pit is dug for the wicked.” On a “prayer call” promoting the event,Intercessors for America’s Kris Kubalsaid that election fraud is “demonic” and an “evil from Satan.”  True the Vote, she declared, was involved in a “supernatural battle.” Phillips agreed that “there is so much evil around all of this right now.”

“God wants us to expose that pit and shut it down, and that’s what we’re going to do,” Engelbrecht said. True the Vote leaders did not release compelling new evidence of voter fraud at “The Pit,” but they did announce the creation of a “fusion center” that would gather “actionable intelligence” for local sheriffs to act on.

Like Engelbrecht and Phillips, Mack portrays his “constitutional sheriff” movement and its involvement in election issues in spiritual terms. In his 2014 book, “Are You a David?” Mack argued that “modern-day Davids”—by which he meant sheriffs and other local public servants—are “the only viable solution for the restoration of our God-given rights, in conjunction with our willingness to repent and return to God’s law as a people.” At a July press conference Mack organized during the right-wing “Freedom Fest” held in Las Vegas, he urged sheriffs to “join us in this holy cause.”

Sheriffs: The Law or a Threat to the Law?

There is a long history in this country of corrupt local sheriffs abusing their power, from Jim Clark leading attacks on civil rights marchers in Alabama in the 1960s to Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva overseeing a department notorious for violent deputy gangs threatening public safety today.

In 2020, the research group Political Research Associates identified 136 sheriffs aligned with the far-right “patriot” and militia movement in which Political Research Associates situates Mack’s CSPOA. The research group noted that at the time, 90 percent of the 3,081 county sheriffs in the United States were white men, and that “there has been a concerted effort in the last decade to mobilize sheriffs toward further supporting and expanding systems of racialized social control and expulsion.” The Reflective Democracy Campaign, a project of the Women’s Donor Network, noted that “The alarmingly skewed demographics of sheriffs suggest a system hard-wired for abuse, and their track record of mistreating women and people of color confirms it.”

Some sheriff’s offices have connections to, or have been infiltrated by, other far-right extremist groups. The Brennan Center found that sheriff’s deputies in Washington state and Louisiana had publicly supported and joined the Proud Boys—whose leaders have been charged with seditious conspiracy in the attack on the Capitol—and noted that a sheriff’s deputy in Orange County, California, was photographed wearing a patch that included the word “Oath Keeper” and the logo of the Three Percenters on his bulletproof vest. The Washington state and Louisiana deputies were fired; the California deputy was not.

Added to this already toxic mix are messages from the likes of Mack and Lamb that sheriffs must investigate electoral fraud. Such declarations are a “significant overreach of authority,” David Mahoney, a former president of the National Sheriffs Association, told The Guardian.

So what role, if any, should sheriffs play in our elections?

“There is a critical role for law enforcement to play in protecting our election: they should be offering protection to election officials and election workers that have come under attack as a result of lies being spread by groups like True the Vote,” the Brennan Center’s Sean Morales-Doyletold The Guardian in August.

It is not difficult to imagine the chilling effect of being accused of voter fraud by a person with a badge and gun, what Jessica Pishko called “part of an escalating campaign to police the vote” in a recent story for Bolts magazine. “The prospect of increased involvement of armed officers recalls the days of voter intimidation in the Jim Crow South (and beyond), and could also help encourage extremist vigilante violence by perpetuating baseless rumors of fraud, often against Black and Latinx communities,” Pishko wrote.

Recent reports of armed bands gathering at ballot drop boxes and challenging voters suggests that Pishko was right. (This week a federal court ordered a group in Arizona to stop intimidating voters with their armed and body-armored presence at ballot drop boxes.) [check]

The multi-faceted campaign to corrupt elections by convincing millions of Americans that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump by Black and Brown voters is a threat to democracy. It has created and inflamed a large group of enraged Trump supporters and sparked harassment and threats against election officials. It has led to a wave of state laws designed to restrict registration and voting. It has led to Trumpist partisans and conspiracy theorists becoming poll workers and running for political offices where they will have the power to interfere with the administration of elections. And it has led some armed vigilantes to set up intimidating “security” operations at voting locations.

Added to this volatile mix are groups of sheriffs riled up by falsehoods and propaganda, pumped up an ideology of virtually unchecked power, and spurred on by the belief that they are engaged in a holy war to save America from destruction. Voters and other public officials must be alert to the abuses that could flow from these new partnerships and be prepared to hold individuals accountable for any actions to intimidate or interfere with people exercising their right to vote.

https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/14/arizona-ag-true-the-vote-00061973

no lnx

KYLE CHENEY and NICHOLAS WU

10/14/2022

The office of Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich is asking the FBI and IRS to investigate True the Vote, a conservative vote-monitoring nonprofit Donald Trump has repeatedly touted for its efforts to raise doubts about the legitimacy of the 2020 election.

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Reginald Grigsby, an investigator with Brnovich’s office, described a series of questionable interactions with the group’s leaders and suggested there may be evidence of financial improprieties if the agencies pursued them.

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“Given TTV’s status as a nonprofit organization, it would appear that further review of its financials may be warranted,” Grigsby wrote.

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The letter, dated Friday, is particularly remarkable coming from the office of Brnovich, a Republican who once vied for Trump’s support in a Senate GOP primary bid that hinged on false claims about the 2020 election results.

The IRS and the FBI’s Phoenix field office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A True the Vote spokesperson could not immediately be reached for comment.

Grigsby urged the federal agencies to pursue the group after what it described as multiple suspicious interactions with leaders Catherine Engelbrecht and Gregg Phillips. Grigsby said the pair met with state investigators three times since early 2021 and promised to provide data it said would prove widespread fraud in the 2020 election — but the evidence never arrived.

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Even though the group never turned over the promised data, Grigsby wrote, it began publicly claiming that it had given the state a hard drive — a claim Grigsby indicated the group also made to the Arizona Senate and to the Phoenix office of the FBI.

“Not only is this patently false, TTV acknowledged via correspondence and during a meeting with them that they had not given us the information but that they would,” he wrote.

True the Vote propagated claims of vote fraud by relying on geolocation data, which became the central focus of the movie “2000 Mules.” Trump has cited the movie as proof the election was stolen, and he’s praised the group’s work. But the movie’s claims have been sharply called into question by federal investigators and researchers who have tested its theories.

Former Attorney General Bill Barr delivered a forceful rebuke of the movie’s premise in testimony to the Jan. 6 select committee. He told the panel that in any metropolitan area, geolocation data would likely show “hundreds” of people who passed by drop boxes on multiple occasions.

“The premise that if you go by a box, five boxes or whatever it was, you know that that’s a mule is just indefensible,” Barr said, adding, “It didn’t establish widespread illegal harvesting,” Barr said.

Despite Barr’s mockery of the premise, Trump has promoted its claims both online and during his public events.

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In an April 2022 meeting, Grigsby said the group claimed to have evidence of “243 mules” who had stuffed ballot boxes in Arizona. But they presented no hard evidence to back it up, he said.

In his most recent meeting with the group on June 1, Grigsby said Engelbrecht and Phillips indicated they had shared all their data with the FBI and were working with the bureau as informants. But he said the FBI’s Phoenix field office quickly confirmed this to be false and said the group had, in turn, told FBI agents to contact Brnovich’s office to obtain their data.

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Grigsby also flagged the nonprofit status of the organization, noting the “considerable sums of money” they had raised while alleging massive voter fraud and promises to provide law enforcement with the information — even as they remained unable to provide the information.

https://www.mediamatters.org/jack-posobiec/fbi-warns-threats-state-poll-workers-right-wing-media-and-denialist-groups-spread

mma 10 22

a combination of local election denialist groups and national conservative media figures are driving conspiracy theories about voter fraud in Pennsylvania — the same falsehoods and misinformation that are putting election workers at an increased risk of violence, according to the FBI and Department of Justice. Pennsylvania is one of several states that have seen increased threats of violence toward election officials, driven by false claims that the 2020 election was stolen and that future voter fraud is likely.

Nearly all of the groups and media figures pushing these narratives in Pennsylvania support the gubernatorial campaign of Republican state Sen. Doug Mastriano, who helped to incite the attempted coup on January 6, 2021, and has embraced numerous extremist positions. Mastriano also unsuccessfully used his position to attempt to overturn Pennsylvania’s presidential election results, ingratiating himself to some of the state’s most extreme conservative activists.

Against this backdrop, former President Donald Trump has already begun organizing attempts to challenge the results of the state’s midterm elections, according to Rolling Stone.

Trump has been briefed on plans in multiple states and critical races — including in Georgia. But Pennsylvania has grabbed his interest most keenly, including in the Senate contest between Democrat John Fetterman and the Trump-endorsed GOP contender Mehmet Oz. If the Republican does not win by a wide enough margin to trigger a speedy concession from Fetterman — or if the vote tally is close on or after Election Night in November — Trump and other Republicans are already preparing to wage a legal and activist crusade against the “election integrity” of Democratic strongholds such as the Philly area.

Already, MAGA activists and Republican Party officials are creating the conditions that make voter suppression and violence against workers more likely. Earlier this month, the Republican National Committee's director for election integrity in Pennsylvania said on a conference call with election denialist group Audit the Vote PA that they’d filled “6,000 poll watcher positions in the state this year, compared with 1,000 in 2020,” according to Reuters, which noted that “election conspiracy groups also often appear at events with Republican officials, focused on recruiting volunteers to help watch the polls, according to the groups themselves and county officials.”

Pennsylvania’s acting secretary of state recently told PennLive that “a lot of these threats are fueled by mis- and disinformation,” emphasizing, “It’s important to get out accurate information about the election process in Pennsylvania so voters and the public know that when there are delays in counting, it doesn’t mean anything nefarious happening.”

The deep connections between these denialist influencers, their groups, and right-wing media outlets illustrate the extent to which conspiracy theories about voter fraud have become a unifying principle in conservative organizing. Now, those same false claims are potentially driving threats and harassment against election workers across the country.

Right-wing media champion Doug Mastriano’s campaign

Mastriano rose to prominence challenging Biden’s win in Pennsylvania in 2020, and election denialism has been at the forefront of his campaign for governor. He has spread these conspiracy theories across conservative media while rejecting mainstream interviews. He’s a frequent guest on Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, which has become a hub for election denialists from all over the country.

One of Mastriano’s top champions in conservative media is neo-Nazi collaborator and “Pizzagate” conspiracy theorist Jack Posobiec, who has appeared at campaign events for Mastriano as recently as this month. Posobiec is another War Room mainstay and occasional guest host,often using Bannon’s platform to praise Mastriano’s campaign, including in an interview in July

CitationFrom the July 20, 2022, edition of War Room: Pandemic, streamed on Rumble

"The question on everybody’s mind I believe, certainly for this audience, the War Room audience, and if Steve were here right now he’d be asking the same exact question, is voter integrity,” Posobiec said near the beginning of the segment, focusing on the false idea that Pennsylvania's elections are insecure. “What can be done between now and November for the current election that you are in to preserve that idea of voter integrity and fight back against some of these issues that we’ve brought up in the past?” (Bannon was not on his show that day because he was in court unsuccessfully fighting his contempt of Congress case for refusing to testify before the House select committee investigating the January 6 insurrection.)

“We’re going to have to have eyeballs on all the election stations,” Mastriano responded. “I need 20,000 poll watchers to cover the state.”

He then implored War Room listeners who were interested in volunteering “instead of complaining” to go to his website and sign up. To underline the point, Posobiec closed the interview by reminding the audience where they could go to volunteer to become a poll watcher.

More recently, Posobiec told War Room viewers that the governor’s race in Pennsylvania is even more important than in many other states, stating that whoever controlled that office would determine the state’s electoral votes in two years.

“If you’re looking at 2024, you have to understand that Pennsylvania is the keystone,” Posobiec said on October 1. “I railed on this in 2020. The secretary of state in Pennsylvania is an appointed Cabinet position of the governor. It is not a separately elected office.”

“That means the 2022 race for governor is the presidential race, because that determines who your secretary of state is going to be in a state which gives you 20 electoral votes,” he continued. “We’re going to make sure everybody understands the stakes that are at play here, because this is the game for our republic.”

Posobiec’s comments illustrate how Mastriano’s allies in right-wing media continue to shore up his conservative bona fides, even as his campaign attempts to obscure his extremist views. After winning the Republican gubernatorial primary in May, Mastriano or his staff apparently began deleting some of his more controversial videos and social media posts from his official accounts. These actions follow a pattern; as Media Matters previously reported, Mastriano has also posted and deleted more than 50 tweets in support of the QAnon conspiracy theory.

He may now be attempting to downplay his rampant election denialism in the weeks before the midterms. On the morning that Bannon was sentenced for contempt of Congress, Posobiec sat in as a guest co-host to interview Mastriano, and the two avoided the topic completely.

The previous evening, Mastriano appeared on conservative YouTuber Tim Pool’s show, further illustrating the candidate’s total enmeshment in right-wing media. Over the course of that more than two hour-long interview, Mastriano largely avoided pushing voter fraud conspiracy theories as well. Yet even when he seemingly attempts to moderate his position, Mastriano still perpetuates the idea that elections are fundamentally insecure and voter fraud is rampant.

“We’re working real hard to get at least one trained poll watcher in every polling station for transparency and accountability,” he said on Newsmax on October 24.

“Merely asking questions about the elections — it does not make me an election denier,” he said on One America News the same day.

But Mastriano had struck a very different tone immediately after the 2020 election. “We're going to take our power back,” he said on Bannon’s War Room on November 27, 2020, promising to “seat the electors" from a fake pro-Trump slate instead of recognizing Biden’s victory in the state.

A web of election denialist influencers

War Room has also been a platform for some of Pennsylvania’s most active conspiracy theorists, includingToni Shuppe, who heads denialist group Audit the Vote PA.Shuppe has argued that the Pizzagate conspiracy theory – which purports that high-ranking Democrats were involved in a child sex trafficking ring – is “absolutely real.” She also claimed that QAnon, which has many of the same themes as Pizzagate, is a “very valuable resource.” Perhaps not coincidentally, Posobiec also pushed the Pizzagate conspiracy theory and created disinformation about the origins of QAnon in an apparent effort to save the Trump campaign from embarrassment.

In August, Shuppe appeared on War Room to advocate against using machines to count and tabulate votes, based on the debunked theory that voting machines were used to rig the 2020 election.

“We have a massive grassroots movement in Pennsylvania,” Bannon said. “It’s essentially what got President Trump elected in 2016, and to be brutally frank, it’s real votes, certifiable votes, it’s what got him to win Pennsylvania in 2020.” (In reality, Trump lost Pennsylvania in 2020.)

“We’re dealing with a weaponized government, which, I don’t have to tell you or anybody that watches your show that that’s what we’re dealing with,” Shuppe told Bannon. “So there’s a risk there, but there’s nothing in the law that says we can’t make these changes in our report that’s on our website.

[vid CitationFrom the August 29, 2022, edition of War Room: Battleground, streamed on Rumble

in addition to appearing frequently on War Room and failing Fox News competitor One America News, Shuppe hosts her own streaming show, also called Audit the Vote PA. The show serves as a combination of propaganda outlet and organizing space to enlist new adherents and keep those already engaged active in the run-up to the midterms.

In July, Shuppe interviewed election denialist and retired CIA officer Sam Faddis, who reportedly recently met with Trump to lay out plans for challenging the midterm results in Pennsylvania.In that segment, Faddis promoted an upcoming rally he was participating in with election denier Catherine Engelbrecht,whose group True the Vote has become a leading voice in the nationwide denialist movement. Faddis also defended Mastriano, and cautioned that conservatives should not become demoralized at the prospect of needing to overcome stolen elections.

“And just in case you’re thinking about staying home and not voting, I get the frustration around 2020 isn’t fixed, we still have what appears to be an illegitimate president, and it is very tempting to throw in the towel and say, ‘What’s the point of voting?’” Shuppe said. “But I strongly encourage you otherwise because November 2022 in Pennsylvania is going to be a pivotal election, not just for our state, but I believe for the rest of the country.”

Shuppe also interviewed Posobiec earlier this month and the two pushed conspiracy theories about the state’s supposed election vulnerabilities.

“If you can get everything right in terms of turnout, if you get everything right in terms of integrity, then you get Pennsylvania back, you flip Pennsylvania,” Posobiec said. He later added, “In order to do that, you need to lay the groundwork out years ahead of the race. And that’s what Sen. Mastriano provides.”

Shuppe responded by claiming Democratic gubernatorial nominee and state Attorney General Josh Shapiro is “ultimately afraid that we’re going to get a transparent, free and fair election process with a Gov. Mastriano and they won’t be able to stuff ballots and cheat the way they did in 2020 [vid CitationFrom the October 5, 2022, edition of Audit the Vote PA, streamed on Rumble

on October 19, Shuppe interviewed local denialist activist Bill Borton, who opposes the use of drop boxes on the false grounds that they have been used to perpetuate widespread ballot stuffing.

“I am reasonably certain there hasn't been a free and fair election in the United States in over 20 years,” Borton said. “Maybe longer.”

“I would agree,” Shuppe responded.

Borton is a plaintiff in a lawsuit brought by America First Legal (AFL), a conservative legal group founded by former Trump adviser Stephen Miller,against Chester County, Pennsylvania, over allegations that ballots had been dropped in unmonitored drop boxes in violation of state law. Borton, who helped obtain the footage, hopes the case or others like it will bring an end to ballot drop boxes altogether.

“Me being the eternal optimist that I am, this could conceivably mean that a day or so after the drop boxes open, we nab a couple people, have proof of it, and they all get shut down for the rest of the time leading up to the election,” Borton told Shuppe.

Though the complaint alleges that surveillance video shows “over 300 individuals” dropping off more than one ballot, which is against Pennsylvania law, some extremist media figures have exaggerated this case as an example of verified, intentional voter fraud and pressed that this exemplifies the need for physical monitoring at drop boxes.

Infowars’ resident insurrectionist Owen Shroyer opened his September 19 discussion of the subject by complaining that the media is “demonizing conservatives, demonizing Republicans for staking out polling locations and drop boxes,” citing evidence from the AFL that allegedly “found individuals stuffing ballot boxes, same people showing up multiple times with dozens of ballots.” Shroyer asked his audience, “Why don’t Democrats want you watching drop boxes? Because Democrats are using drop boxes to cheat and steal an election.: judge in a similar case brought by AFL in Pennsylvania ruled that in-person monitoring was not necessary.

“Since mail-in ballots have been in use, no fraud has been detected in Lehigh County with the mail-in ballot process,” Judge Thomas Capehart wrote.

Fox News hosts amplify bogus ballot stuffing claims

[vid]

Borton has played an outsized role in some of the national media attention on Pennsylvania’s elections. Most of the national conservative media coverage centers around mail-in voting and ballot drop boxes, both of which have been identified, incorrectly, by Pennsylvania election deniers and the Republican Party as previous sites of voter fraud.

Fox host Mark Levin celebrated AFL’sChester County complaint as a win, adding, “I suspect there's a hell of a lot more than one.”

Separately, a long-running legal fight over undated mail-in ballots came to a head on October 11, when the Supreme Court vacated a lower court ruling that allowed undated ballots to be counted in a 2021 local county judge election. Pennsylvania law requires that mail-in ballot envelopes be hand-signed and dated, though both the state’s Commonwealth Court and 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals agreed that this provision was designed to unfairly throw out ballots. Acting Secretary of State Leigh Chapman issued guidance that same day directing counties to continue to count undated mail-in ballots, as the Supreme Court’s decision was not relevant to midterms.

On his radio show,Fox host Sean Hannity pressed that Chapman’s guidance was an excuse for Democrats to give their voters an advantage: “Of course, Democrats, they don't want to follow laws. They want to make them up as they go along and, you know, make everything work to their advantage.”

Levin was more direct, arguing that this shows “they're trying to steal the election for” Democratic Senate nominee and current Lt. Gov. John Fetterman. According to Levin, “This is the sort of thing that changes election results.”

On a previous show, Levin accused Democrats of “causing all this anguish, this anarchy,” as “the Republicans aren't in there trying to change state law through well-placed Republican officials. It’s the Democrats.”

Of course, as Posobiec outlined above, this is exactly the election denialist plan for 2024: Disrupt midterms, get Republicans elected, and lay the groundwork for an easy 2024 Trump win.