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Leftist Groups Lay Groundwork To Call a Trump Victory Illegitimate, Smearing His Supporters as ‘Violent’

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Leaders of leftist influence groups sought to preemptively discredit potential claims of victory by former President Donald Trump and portrayed his supporters as violent in an apparent effort to pave the way for Vice President Kamala Harris to claim victory.

“There is a lot of investment by allies of President Trump to suggest that his victory is inevitable,” said David Becker, founder of the Center for Election Innovation and Research, which funneled millions in “Zuckbucks” to election officials in 2020. “If he loses the election, or perceives that he’s losing, you can imagine the shock that is going to be felt by his supporters, and how that’s going to be leveraged by grifters to try to anger them, to try to incite them to violence.”

The webinar, which happened Wednesday, was appropriately called “Red, White, and Coup.” It featured Becker; Nora Benavidez, senior counsel for the Free Press (which supports censorship and was founded by a socialist); Heidi Beirich, cofounder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism (which smears conservative groups); and Damon Hewitt, president of the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (which wages lawfare against conservatives).

Panelists cast a potential Trump claim to victory as illegitimate and suggested his supporters and those with election integrity concerns are “extremists” with a potential for violence, in what appeared to be an attempt to predetermine the narrative and set the stage for Harris to claim victory and suppress dissent. . .

Becker suggested two apparent scenarios: one in which Harris seems to win and Trump tries to overturn the results, and another in which Trump prematurely claims victory on election night. In either case, Becker suggested a Trump victory claim would be illegitimate. (Read more from “Leftist Groups Lay Groundwork To Call a Trump Victory Illegitimate, Smearing His Supporters as ‘Violent’” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Asking Questions About Election Integrity Doesn’t Make Someone an ‘Election Denier’

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If Americans have questions and concerns about how our elections are administered and how ballots are tabulated, does that make them “election deniers,” conspiracy theorists, threats to democracy?

The Wall Street Journal seems to think so. In a long news report published over the weekend headlined, “‘It Feels Very Dystopian.’ Republican County Officials Brace for Election Deniers—Again,” the Journal repeatedly characterized those who think the 2020 election was stolen, rigged, or less-than-secure as “election deniers,” and stopped just short of calling them domestic terrorists.

The piece is framed as a disturbing look at the growing threats facing local election officials from “election deniers” — an asinine epithet — as we approach November 5: “Four years of baseless allegations of election fraud have created an atmosphere of fear and intimidation among election officials from Atlanta to rural Washington state, transforming the way workers in many parts of the country are approaching the most fundamental of civic duties.”

Election officials, workers, and even volunteers have been forced to take extraordinary measures to protect themselves, we’re told. Active shooter drills, barricading exercises, trauma kits, bulletproof glass, and bulletproof vests have all become commonplace in election offices across the country. Scary stuff.

And it’s all Trump’s fault, apparently. After a series of legal challenges to the 2020 results were dismissed, Trump “has continued to assert the election was rigged,” the article reads, eliding the important difference between stealing and rigging an election. (Read more from “Asking Questions About Election Integrity Doesn’t Make Someone an ‘Election Denier’” HERE)

Maricopa Elections Chief Enlisted Foreign Censorship Group in War on Disapproved Speech

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Maricopa County Recorder Steven Richer turned to the left-leaning States United Democracy Center and an overseas group bankrolled by the State Department to help his office target election speech that’s disapproved of by the government, according to emails obtained by The Federalist.

Richer thanked States United for offering to let his office “piggy back” on the group’s anti-speech operations, which he described as “deep scanning” the internet for “disinformation,” a term often invoked to censor speech the government disagrees with. States United is a left-wing election law group that consistently opposes Republican election integrity legislation like voter ID laws and supports Democrat attempts to diminish election security, according to InfluenceWatch. The group has praised the weaponization of the justice system against Trump, and was described by The New York Times as part of a “coalition” preparing to “push back” against a potential Trump victory with “extraordinary pre-emptive actions.”

According to email records, States United set up a call with Richer’s staff and the global censorship group, Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD). ISD is a London group that has been accused of wrongly labeling “mainstream views” as “misinformation” and subsequently censoring conservative opinions online, according to InfluenceWatch. The group was the recipient of a 2021 grant sponsored by the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, which “fund[s] the development of censorship tools,” as The Federalist’s Margot Cleveland has reported. The ISD works with governments, leftist 501(c)(3) groups, and Big Tech companies as well as some of the left’s biggest financial backers.

Richer later suggested Arizona State University officials should fire Faculty Associate Aaron Ludwig for retweeting election concerns, apparently looping States United in on the process. . .

“Thanks very much to States United for the kind offer to let us piggy back on some of the deep scanning you’re contracting for election threats and disinformation,” Richer emailed then-States United Senior Counsel Bo Dul on June 17, 2022. Richer indicated his office and “some … partners at the county” do some of this work already, but that he would “love to fill any holes” with the offer from States United. (Read more from “Maricopa Elections Chief Enlisted Foreign Censorship Group in War on Disapproved Speech” HERE)

Photo credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr

Arizona Supreme Court Green-Lights Ranked-Choice Voting Ballot Initiative Riddled With Duplicate Signatures

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On Friday, the Arizona Supreme Court ruled that votes cast for a pro-ranked-choice voting constitutional amendment in the 2024 election will count — even though nearly 38,000 signatures supporting the amendment proposal were duplicates.

In its decision, the Grand Canyon State’s high court rejected a challenge seeking to have votes cast for Proposition 140 voided after a lower court special master disclosed that 37,657 pairs of signatures gathered in support of the measure were duplicates. As previously argued by the Arizona Free Enterprise Club (AZFEC), the finding “place[s] Proposition 140 thousands of signatures under the constitutionally required signature threshold to qualify for the [November] ballot.”

Prop 140 would amend the Arizona Constitution by implementing an open primary system in which candidates of all parties run in the same primary. It also paves the way for the state to potentially adopt ranked-choice voting (RCV) for general elections.

Under an RCV system, voters are asked to rank candidates of all parties in order of preference. If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of first-choice votes in the first round of voting, the last-place finisher is eliminated, and his votes are reallocated to the voter’s second-choice candidate. This process continues until one candidate receives a majority of votes.

As The Federalist previously reported, the Arizona Supreme Court allowed a signature challenge to Prop 140 filed by several residents to move forward on Aug. 23. The high court stated that if it were determined that enough invalid signatures existed to disqualify the initiative from appearing on the November ballot, the trial court “should issue an injunction precluding any votes for the measure from being counted,” as the state had already started printing ballots. The court issued a subsequent ruling on Sept. 16 vacating that statement and permitting the initiative’s supporters to make their arguments in the trial court that Arizona courts lack jurisdiction to remedy such a solution. (Read more from “Arizona Supreme Court Green-Lights Ranked-Choice Voting Ballot Initiative Riddled With Duplicate Signatures” HERE)

Colorado Judge Receives Threats After Sentencing Tina Peters to Prison

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A rural Colorado county courthouse beefed up security Friday after threats were made against staff and a judge who sentenced former county clerk Tina Peters to nearly nine years behind bars and admonished her for her role in a data breach scheme catalyzed by the lie that the 2020 election was stolen from former President Donald Trump.

Courthouse staff in Grand Junction, Colorado, received multiple threats that were being vetted by law enforcement while extra security was provided, said spokesperson Wendy Likes with the Mesa County Sheriff’s Office.

She did not say how many threats were made or how they were received. She also declined to describe the extra security. . .

Peters, a Republican, was sentenced Thursday for allowing access to the county’s election system to a man affiliated with My Pillow chief executive Mike Lindell — a prominent promoter of [] claims that voting machines were manipulated to steal the election. (Read more from “Colorado Judge Receives Threats After Sentencing Tina Peters to Prison” HERE)

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Bombshell Lawsuit: Arizona’s Elections Chief Is Hiding Info on 218K Voters Lacking Proof of Citizenship

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Arizona’s Democrat elections chief is illegally withholding the identities of approximately 218,000 registered voters on the state’s voter rolls who lack documentary proof of citizenship (DPOC), a lawsuit filed Wednesday alleges.

Brought by the Strong Communities Foundation of Arizona (SCFA) against Democrat Secretary of State Adrian Fontes and the Arizona Department of State, the legal challenge “seeks to restore public trust in [Arionza’s] electoral system by ensuring transparency about the Defendants’ failures to ensure that registered voters have provided DPOC, as required by law.” The group is represented by America First Legal and a law firm spearheaded by former Arizona Assistant Attorney General Jennifer Wright.

The lawsuit addresses an issue that first came to light last month, in which Arizona election officials announced they discovered approximately 98,000 registered “full-ballot” voters who have not provided documentary proof of citizenship required to participate in state and local elections. The error appears to have resulted “from the way the Motor Vehicle Division provides driver’s license information to the state’s voter registration system,” according to Votebeat Arizona.

Fontes said most of the affected voters are registered Republicans, according to the outlet.

In Arizona, voters registering via state registration form must show DPOC to vote in state and local races. Individuals who are unable to provide such documentation are registered as “federal-only” voters and can only cast ballots in federal races. (Read more from “Bombshell Lawsuit: Arizona’s Elections Chief Is Hiding Info on 218K Voters Lacking Proof of Citizenship” HERE)

Left-Wing Media Malign GA Election Rules In Bid To Make Certification Nothing More Than A Rubber Stamp

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Georgia’s State Election Board (SEB) recently passed a series of rules aimed at ensuring that election results are accurate before they are certified. But left-wing corporate media is maligning the rules in an effort to make election certification nothing more than a hollow formality.

One rule approved by the SEB (Rule 183-1-12-.02) clarifies that county election boards can fulfill their certification responsibility “after reasonable inquiry that the tabulation and canvasing of the election are complete and accurate and that the results are a true and accurate accounting of all votes cast in that election.”

A separate rule (Rule 183-1-12-.12) permits, in part, board members to review “all election related documentation created during the conduct of elections prior to certification of results.” . . .

The propaganda press has set out to do the bidding of Democrats (including Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign) to amplify the narrative that it’s better to rubber-stamp an election with no questions asked than to confirm that the election results are accurate.

CBS News’ Katrina Kaufman, Madeleine May, and Scott MacFarlane suggest the rules are meant to help “election conspiracy theorists across the country … attempt to delay the final tabulation of results.” But all the rules really do is clarify the role that county officials play in confirming that results are accurate as part of the certification process — a process that’s incredibly important, SEB Member Janelle King tells The Federalist. (Read more from “Left-Wing Media Malign GA Election Rules In Bid To Make Certification Nothing More Than A Rubber Stamp” HERE)

The Feds’ Election Interference Didn’t Stop After 2020, It Just Got More Sophisticated

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America’s speech police are reassembling to once again influence our elections. At the same time the security state is creating potential pretexts for renewed censorship by issuing warnings of cyberattacks that could “hinder public access to election information,” they are also reprising old claims of coming Russian election interference on behalf of Donald Trump.

The little-noticed development comes in a report from the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General (OIG) on the DOJ’s efforts to “Coordinate Information Sharing About Foreign Malign Influence Threats to U.S. Elections” — a euphemism for the chief law enforcement agency’s prior censorship activities.

During the 2020 election, as revealed in litigation, congressional oversight, and reporting, national security and law enforcement agencies used the threat of foreign misinformation and disinformation on social media to U.S. elections as a pretext to surveil and suppress domestic news and opinions deemed derogatory to our ruling regime.

An alphabet soup of agencies coerced, cajoled, and colluded directly and via cutouts with social media companies to get those companies to squash all manner of wrongthink on election integrity and outcomes at mass scale.

While the OIG explicitly omitted the “FBI’s information sharing with social media companies with respect to domestic actors” from its report, the DOJ’s response to the office’s recommendations will likely have substantial bearing on Americans’ speech. (Read more from “The Feds’ Election Interference Didn’t Stop After 2020, It Just Got More Sophisticated” HERE)

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Report: America Has Nearly 300,000 Double-Registered Voters

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A watchdog group has uncovered close to 300,000 voters registered in two or more states, including thousands of double voters.

“Registrars aren’t doing their jobs,” Linda Szynkowicz, CEO of the nonprofit Fight Voter Fraud, told The Federalist. “Stop telling me the voter rolls are fine. They’re not.”

Fight Voter Fraud found 297,856 voters registered in two or more states, according to a report released last week. Nearly all of these voters only registered in two states, but 3,112 registered in three states and 24 registered in four or more.

The report also found 3,170 people who voted at least twice in elections from 2016 to 2022. While most only double voted once, 248 double voted twice, 194 double voted three times, and 180 double voted four times.

Fight Voter Fraud’s report included data for all 50 states, of which Florida had the most double registrations — more than 37,000 — along with 312 who voted multiple times in elections. California had similar numbers, with more than 36,000 double registered, and 732 who voted multiple times. (Read more from “Report: America Has Nearly 300,000 Double-Registered Voters” HERE)

Stage Set for Another Election Catastrophe in Major Swing State

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Georgia was one of the swing states in the 2020 presidential election where there were concerns about massive fraud: Tens of thousands of probably illegal ballots. . .

And now a report in the Federalist is warning that because of that failure, the 2024 vote in Georgia is setting up to be a catastrophe.

The report explains there were charges that some 35,000 possibly illegal votes were counted that election. That was the election when Joe Biden was declared the winner by only 11,779 votes.

The issue is being pushed by Mark Davis, the president of Data Productions Inc. “and an expert in voter data analytics and residency issues,” according to the report. He filed documents with the Georgia secretary of state and the state election board seeking an investigation of some 25,794 possibly illegal votes subsequently cast in the 2022 midterms. . .

“And now, with just four months until the November 2024 general election, the state’s refusal to address the problem ensures chaos will ensue unless there is a complete blowout by one of the candidates,” the report explained. (Read more from “Stage Set for Another Election Catastrophe in Major Swing State” HERE)