Democrats and media keep insisting that absentee ballots and mail-in voting don’t contribute to voter fraud — but a mayoral election in Connecticut could blow a big hole in that dubious claim.

All of this is theoretical anyway, as it would take a constitutional amendment to institute age maximums. Because guess what? A solution already exists. Vote them out. We act as if these septuagenarians and octogenarians have been thrust upon us by some unknown force. We put them there. If three-quarters of voters truly believed Biden is too old for office, they would find someone else to run. But Democrats would rather pretend that the president, not exactly Cicero in his best days, is an intellectual and physical dynamo because they want to hold onto power. Deep down they know no one in their right mind thinks a fresh-faced Mayor Pete is any better.

The reality is that when it matters, voters across the country love the old timers — perhaps because they are known quantities or maybe they bring home the money or maybe people genuinely like them. If they didn’t, none of them would be in Washington.

Fulton County DA Fani Willis has evidence exonerating Republicans she’s targeting in her 98-page Georgia indictment. //

The revelations unearthed in the transcript raise a significant question: If Willis was in possession of the transcript prior to Aug. 14, why did she charge Shafer and Smith for allegedly partaking in a “conspiracy” to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results when the aforementioned document shows otherwise? //

Unlike the 1960 Hawaii case, which was promptly resolved in court prior to Congress’s certification of the election, the Fulton County state court reportedly violated Georgia’s election code by failing to swiftly assign a judge to hear Trump’s election challenge. Furthermore, the Georgia court delayed the first scheduled hearing of Trump’s lawsuit until Jan. 8, 2021 — “two days after Congress certified Biden the winner of the 2020 election” — which effectively guaranteed that any court decision invalidating potentially illegal ballots would be moot.

It’s worth mentioning that evidence unearthed following the 2020 election shows Trump’s legal challenge in Georgia had strong merit, with records indicating there were more illegal votes than Biden’s margin of victory in Georgia. Under state law, Georgians must vote in the county where they reside, unless they changed their residence within 30 days of Election Day.

As The Federalist reported, however, Mark Davis, the president of Data Productions Inc. and “an expert in voter data analytics and residency issues,” used data from the National Change of Address database to identify “nearly 35,000 Georgia voters who indicated they had moved from one Georgia county to another, but then voted in the 2020 general election in the county from which they had moved.” In a phone interview this week, Davis told The Federalist that more recent figures show more than 12,000 of those 35,000 Georgians later updated their voter registration addresses, “providing the secretary of state the exact address they had previously provided to the [U.S. Postal Service].” In other words, more than 12,000 in-state movers tacitly confirmed they illegally cast their vote in the wrong county in 2020.

Greg Boulden Host of America Emboldened
·
Jul 2, 2023
@RealGregBoulden
·
Replying to @RealGregBoulden
When democrats talk about the support for their candidates, and create bots as influencers, this is path modeling. It’s a scientific method to change the hearts and minds of people to peddle influence over the masses.

This IS the election interference we have been warned about.
Greg Boulden Host of America Emboldened
@RealGregBoulden
·
It’s also important to note, they are hiring firms to create the divide. This is not exclusive to democrats. You should question all divisive content that aims to manufacture outrage with no balance.
11:26 AM · Jul 2, 2023

The Supreme Court on Tuesday rebuffed a legal theory that argued that state legislatures have the authority to set election rules with little oversight from state courts, a major decision that turns away a conservative push to empower state legislatures.

By a 6-3 vote, the court rejected the “independent state legislature” theory in a case about North Carolina’s congressional map. The once-fringe legal theory broadly argued that state courts have little — or no — authority to question state legislatures on election laws for federal contests.

The court’s decision in Moore v. Harper closes the path to what could have been a radical overhaul of America’s election laws.

A particularly robust reading of the theory — which the court turned aside — would have empowered state legislatures to make decisions on all aspects of elections, from congressional lines to how people register to vote and cast a ballot, without any opportunity for challengers to contest those decisions in state courts under state laws or constitutions. Opponents of the theory argued that it could have led to unchecked partisan gerrymandering, and laws that would make it harder for people to vote.

Chief Justice John Roberts wrote the court’s opinion, joined by the three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, along with two conservatives, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissented.

The million-dollar question for 2024 contenders is: How will you win the general election under the present voting system? //

An inability to answer this question clearly, compellingly, and convincingly imperils Republican odds of retaking the White House, no matter how favorable their prospects might look come next November. It is incumbent on anyone who wants to earn the Republican presidential nomination to answer this question at the outset, and to operate accordingly.

Over the last two election cycles, Republicans lost in historically aberrant if not unprecedented ways. That, or they underachieved relative to what conditions on the ground would have suggested. Political analysts have pointed to numerous factors to explain why the results broke the way they did, but perhaps the one constant in the presidential and midterm elections was that they were both held under a radically transformed voting system. //

“Zuckerbucks” continue to loom over our contests as well, despite bans in many states. The left is doing everything it can to steer private money toward public election administration — administration done in conjunction with left-wing nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) seemingly targeting the Democrat ballots needed to win.

The Biden administration is working to leverage federal agencies to mobilize presumed Democrat voters as well — also potentially in conjunction with the same NGOs — under a March 2021 executive order, “Promoting Access to Voting,” that has remained shrouded in mystery as the bureaucracy stonewalls over inquiries about its implementation. //

Lawfare is also now an integral part of our election system. Republicans have started to devote significantly greater attention and resources to the litigation game, but to catch up to Democrats will require a long-term, sustained effort, backed with real money. And filing suit over election policies and practices after votes have already been cast of course has proven a losing proposition, //

Meanwhile, Democrats have engaged in efforts to ruin the lives of Republican election lawyers — in their own words to “make them toxic in their communities and in their firms” — seeking to kneecap their competition before it ever reaches the courtroom. //

At minimum, this thought exercise would yield critical insights, and instill in voters and donors alike confidence there is a robust and coherent operation in place to maximize the odds for success.

The planning must begin now.

Only by competing and winning under a rotten system rewarding the kind of organizing and action historically anathema to conservatives will there ever be an opportunity to dismantle that system.

The fruits of this process were what one would expect. Previously, the Michigan legislature apportioned its districts to account for existing county and municipal boundaries, producing legislative districts tied to real communities. At the behest of their “experts,” commissioners did away with this precedent, sacrificing the integrity of rural communities to prop up the population figures of majority Democratic districts in the name of “partisan fairness.” Unsurprisingly, Michigan Democrats flipped the state legislature and captured a majority of congressional seats during the 2022 midterms. //

Promote the Vote also received $10 million from the aforementioned Sixteen Thirty Fund. The initiative constitutionalized early and absentee voting, mandated state-funded ballot drop boxes, and permitted the private takeover of election operations.

The left’s interest in promoting absentee voting and drop boxes and their connection with ballot harvesting is by now well documented. More troubling is the initiative’s permanent establishment of private funding for election administration. //

The strategy of big liberal dark money in propping up VNP in Michigan is obvious: Destroy the viability of GOP candidates and resecure the state’s position in the “blue wall.” To accomplish this goal, use the initiative loophole and millions of out-of-state dark money under the guise of a “nonpartisan grassroots coalition” to circumvent the existing legislative body and dupe voters into delivering their redistricting process into the hands of leftist academics. Then, use the same tactic to achieve additional electoral reforms, protected from repeal by the state Constitution, solidifying a structural advantage for Democrats in the state’s legislature and congressional delegation. //

VNP’s success in Michigan is a stark warning of how the left is finding new ways to destroy whatever remains of our constitutional order. It is a strategy that can, is, and will be replicated nationwide. Welcome to the age of “nonpartisan” politics.

A majority of voters suspect recent elections have been affected by cheating, and believe officials are ignoring the problem.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 60% of Likely U.S. voters think it is likely that cheating affected the outcomes of some races in last year’s midterm elections, including 37% who say it’s Very Likely. Thirty-five percent (35%) don’t believe it’s likely the 2022 midterms were affected by cheating, including 20% who think it’s Not At All Likely. 

The sudden rise of well-funded election activist nonprofits represents a paradigm shift away from persuading and motivating voters, and toward manipulating the election process to benefit Democrats. //

Over the last several months, a growing number of Republicans, including Donald Trump himself, seem to be having a change of heart about universal mail-in voting and ballot harvesting.

While few Republicans are ready to completely abandon policies that support election integrity and transparency, more and more seem willing to follow the old adage “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em,” and suggest that Republicans become significantly more reliant on universal mail-in voting and ballot harvesting to win elections. There is no worse idea in politics today.

Conservatives do not have the institutional or financial support to match Democrats in election activism and ballot harvesting, nor are they likely to be able to any time in the near future. The advantages Democrats have accrued over the last 20 years in election manipulation and “lawfare” are nearly insurmountable.

But this is not necessarily a portent of gloom and doom. The growing number of ultra-left Democratic candidates are deeply unpopular and would be unelectable outside deep-blue areas under the election norms that prevailed prior to the Covid-19 lockdowns and the 2020 presidential election. //

Republicans need to better understand the vast institutional power that is arrayed against them on the left in the form of lavishly funded 501(c)(3) nonprofits and charitable foundations, along with legions of election lawyers, data analysts, and election activists.

Democrats are using tax-exempt and allegedly nonpartisan nonprofits to conduct voter registration campaigns targeting likely-Democrat voters in key battleground states. //

Released by Restoration of America, the two–part report unveils how Democrats employ tax-exempt 501(c)(3) nonprofits to administer voter registration campaigns targeting likely-Democrat voters in key battleground states and districts. Notably, federal law expressly prohibits partisan voter registration through nonprofits: “voter education or registration activities conducted in a biased manner that favors [sic] (or opposes [sic]) one or more candidates is prohibited.”b//

“The challenge is to have state courts hold that 501(c)(3) funds can’t be used for voter registration of targeted progressive demographic groups,” he told report author Hayden Ludwig. That often includes “urban residents or students.”

“The Internal Revenue Service has stated such funds can’t be used directly or indirectly for biased voter registration. But there is no authorization for suing in federal courts. So, the only remaining choice is taxpayer standing lawsuits in state courts—which is good enough,” Kaardal said. “But eventually the U.S. Supreme Court will have to rule whether urban cities and public universities can lawfully use 501(c)(3) funds for the political purpose identified: voter registration campaigns targeted to progressive voters.” //

Whether it’s skirting federal law or injecting partisan money into election offices, Democrats will stop at nothing in their bid to rig elections in their favor. That means it’s incumbent upon Republicans to wake up and completely revamp their game plan for winning elections, including by exposing and prosecuting violations of election laws.

When Sheriff’s deputies in San Joaquin County, CA began investigating Samir Khan regarding an illegal internet gambling operation, they had no idea that they’d ultimately stumble into an election fraud scheme with major implications throughout California and possibly nationwide. A search warrant executed at Khan’s home in the fall of 2020 revealed a stash of 41 completed mail ballots that were not Khan’s, and over the next two years Khan registered approximately 70 people to vote at his address, with his contact information, some of whom are not US citizens and do not live in the US, and cast ballots for them.

In addition, Khan re-registered California voters through the state’s online voter registration process who did not live in his district to his address (so they could vote for him), and listed his own phone number, and email address as the contact. That way any verification emails or calls would come to him. Through loopholes in the system, those registrations were validated and those ballots were mailed to Khan’s home and either he filled them out and returned them, or pressured the voters he’d re-registered to fill it out as he instructed them to, “one for me and one for Biden.” Khan also allegedly forged signatures on his candidate nomination papers to even get on the ballot. //

Some of the anomalies the concerned citizen pointed out to the Sheriff’s Department were shared at the press conference, and they are extremely concerning. This is just one county in California, and we know that there are other countries that are probably in much worse shape. And, how many other states have similar flaws in their voter registration system?

They noticed that there were about 93 people that were registered to vote…with a birth date of 1850. There were 232 people registered to vote with the address to our local prisons. There were 4,144 people that were 90 years old and older. There were 125 people on the voter rolls that were registered to – their address comes back to nonprofit NGO’s and different businesses.

There were approximately 300 people with no first name, just a last name….

There were 110 people that were possible double voters, basically the same name, date of birth, and address, but different voter ID numbers. //

Wabash08
8 minutes ago
Investigators provide a succinct summation of the fundamental problem with 2020 election “reforms”: Voter registration is an “honor system” and “once you’re on the voter rolls, anytime an election comes around, guess what? You get mailed a ballot…”

This is true of any state dumb enough to send automatic mail in ballots to all registered voters and can easily decide presidential, statewide, congressional, state assembly, and local elections.

Under RCV, which critics call “rigged-choice voting,” voters rank candidates in order of preference. If no candidate receives a majority 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. Such a process continues until one candidate receives a majority of votes. //

While the 2020 RCV initiative, known as Ballot Measure 2, was sold to Alaskans as an effort to keep outside dark money from influencing the state’s elections, it was out-of-state funding that helped push the initiative over the finish line. According to an October 2020 report by Breitbart News, for instance, Yes on 2 for Better Elections, a pro-RCV group, raised more funds from outside Alaska ($6,194,081) than from within the state ($20,000).

RCV “becomes an invitation for exceeding amounts of dark money to come in and put forth a candidate that nobody knows,” Mathias said. “Alaskans are tired of being manipulated by rich people from outside [the state who] think they can tell us what to do.”

During the 2022 midterms, Democrat Mary Peltola defeated former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin in the race for Alaska’s at-large congressional district as a result of ranked-choice voting. The RCV system also made a difference in the state’s Senate race, where incumbent GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski fended off a challenge from Trump-backed Kelly Tshibaka. As The Federalist’s Tristan Justice reported, Murkowski’s allies were heavily involved in the push for Alaska to adopt RCV as a way to bolster the incumbent senator’s reelection prospects. //

RCV often disenfranchises segments of voters that left-wing election groups often classify as marginalized, such as racial minorities and non-English speakers. Studies analyzing voting patterns in U.S. cities that utilize ranked-choice voting have shown this to be true.

According to a report from the Alaska Policy Forum, for example, after San Francisco, California, implemented an RCV system, voter turnout decreased among black and white voters, as well as those who were younger or didn’t have a high school education. Similar trends were also present in Minneapolis and Oakland, where “voters in predominately minority precincts were less likely to fully utilize their ballots, making ballot exhaustion more likely.”

As different states and municipalities across the country adopt ranked-choice voting, it’s become obvious this mind-boggling election system deserves a new name: rigged-choice voting. //

What’s behind the RCV takeover? As The Federalist has previously reported, partisan Democratic activists and moderate Republicans are pushing RCV as a legal mechanism to push out more revolutionary (read: populist) candidates in favor of establishment-backed contenders. As Project Veritas has documented, the moderate, nominal Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski was behind the campaign to change Alaska’s primary to an RCV system, ensuring the defeat of her Trump-backed challenger Kelly Tshibaka. Had Alaska not implemented RCV, Tshibaka likely would have defeated Murkowski in the primary. //

The Foundation for Government Accountability notes that ranked-choice voting causes ballot exhaustion (when a ballot is cast but does not count toward the end election result), diminishes voter confidence, and lags election results. It can take weeks or even months for a ranked-choice race to be counted, threatening the security of the process.

If Americans desire democracy and election integrity, rigged-choice voting is clearly not the way to go.

Republicans must be wary of Democratic efforts to fortify elections in 2023 and beyond. While some congressional Republicans might think the post-2020 election integrity fight is over, that couldn’t be farther from the truth. Democrats have a massive ground game advantage over Republicans already, and if they pass these policy proposals — under the insufferable label of “voting rights” — in key swing states, that advantage will only grow to an insurmountable one. Republicans must realize election integrity is not a seasonal push nor a battle isolated to 2020. Rather, they must be on offense for years to come.

While countries with tens of millions of citizens, such as France and Brazil, are able to tabulate nationwide election results within 24 hours, the Grand Canyon State has continued to disrespect its voters by repeatedly leaving them in limbo and turning what’s supposed to be Election Day into “election season.” International election observers have regularly pointed to delayed election results as one of several warning signs of incompetent election administration, and although that doesn’t mean there was impropriety in this year’s Arizona elections, the failure to tabulate votes in a timely and efficient manner does nothing but undermine voters’ confidence in the electoral process.

The Thomas More Society has filed a complaint with Michigan’s Bureau of Elections against Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson for violating federal law in contracting with the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) to clean her state’s voter rolls.

The complaint — filed on behalf of Pure Integrity Michigan Elections — argues that Benson violated the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) by giving ERIC access to Michigan’s Qualified Voter File, a secure voter list used by the bureau of elections and more than 1,500 election clerks. HAVA requires each secretary of state to maintain and clean voter rolls without outside assistance. //

HAVA does not allow states to share voter data with third parties, but Benson’s agreement with ERIC requires her to do so.

Milwaukee Mayor Cavalier Johnson has said his city will use a private grant to conduct door-to-door canvassing by the city’s election officials to urge people to vote.

To many people, it would seem that nothing could be as innocuous as a simple “nonpartisan” get-out-the-vote (GOTV) effort, even if it is financed by private grants to election officials. It might sound fair enough, if the mayor’s election staff takes no partisan position, and advocates for no particular candidates in their efforts, and given that election officials are required by law to operate in a nonpartisan fashion.

But as The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway tweeted at the time, “Zuckerberg-style targeted private financing — and collusion with supposedly non-partisan election administration — of GOTV operations in Democrat regions is a horrific attack on election integrity.”

Even if we could take Milwaukee Mayor Johnson at his word when he says, “I’m not asking anybody to cast their ballots for 1 party or another or 1 candidate or another.  What I’m asking is for people to participate in our process,” what he is suggesting is inherently partisan, at least in Milwaukee, and in most other U.S. urban areas.

Content neutrality of GOTV efforts ultimately has little to do with their partisan effects. The partisan advantage depends far more on the political characteristics of the targeted area. 

In a city like Milwaukee, which Joe Biden won in 2020 with 80 percent of the vote to Donald Trump’s 20 percent, a randomly targeted GOTV effort can be expected to increase the Democratic candidate’s vote total by an extra 600 votes for every 1,000 additional voters mobilized. This is because the Democratic candidate would be expected to get an additional 800 votes, while the Republican candidate would be expected to get an additional 200 votes, resulting in a net gain for the Democrat of 600 votes.

If a successful effort in Milwaukee — such as Johnson has in mind this year — results in the mobilization of 40,000 additional voters in Milwaukee, we would expect the result to be an additional 24,000 votes for the Democratic candidate, far in excess of the 20,682 votes by which Biden defeated Trump in Wisconsin in 2020.

You can calculate the “get-out-the-vote multiplier” (GOTV multiplier) for any city or county yourself. All you have to know is the margin by which the Democratic candidate beat the Republican candidate in the previous election, assuming that the political characteristics of the demographic in question haven’t significantly changed.

For example, if an area is 80 percent Democrat and 20 percent Republican like Milwaukee, the GOTV multiplier will be the difference between the Democrat vote share and the Republican vote share, which in this case is 60 percent or 0.60. An additional 1,000 votes will yield an extra 600 votes for the Democrat.

Of course, if the Republican candidate beats the Democrat candidate, the GOTV multiplier will be negative. This is why one never sees leftist nonprofits targeting GOTV efforts in exurban and rural areas, even though many Democratic voters live in those areas.

A left-leaning New York think tank sounded a familiar warning about Arizona’s “voter suppression bills” being “dangerously close to becoming law.”

The Brennan Center for Justice added in a press release that Arizona was “taking center stage in the relent­less effort to rein in voter parti­cip­a­tion in the name of ‘elec­tion secur­ity.’” Pending bills, the think tank claimed, were “aimed at making voting by mail harder.”

That was in April 2021, before Arizona passed several reform measures that state legislators said they crafted to ensure secure and honest elections.

Little more than a year later, in August 2022, Arizona notched a record for high turnout in a primary election as 1.45 million voters participated, or 35.1% of those registered, surpassing the previous record in a 2000 primary by 7,000 ballots.

Voter turnout in Arizona for 2018, the last primary in a non-presidential election year, was 1.2 million voters, or 33.4%.

In 2021, Democrats and pundits attacked election reform laws enacted in 19 states as attempts at “voter suppression.” The five states that appeared to come under the most attack were Georgia, Texas, Arizona, Florida, and Iowa—all of which saw boosted voter turnout so far in 2022 compared to the 2018 primaries.

As a rule, non-presidential elections and primary elections attract lower turnout than presidential elections or general elections.

But voter turnout was significantly higher in the 2022 primaries in Georgia, Texas, and Arizona and nominally higher in Florida than in the comparable 2018 primaries.

So new election laws in these states did a lousy job of suppressing the vote, if that’s what Republican lawmakers designed them to do.

Where does your state fall? The Heritage Foundation's Election Integrity Scorecard ranks the 50 states and the District of Columbia based on the strength of their election laws.

https://www.heritage.org/electionscorecard/pages/all-state-scores.html

Hawaii may be paradise for vacation spots, but the Aloha State comes in last place in a ranking of all 50 states based on the strength of their election laws.

Going into the midterm elections Nov. 8, the nominal battleground state of Nevada comes in second to last in laws promoting clean and honest elections, while California—the largest state in the nation—is third from the bottom, according to The Heritage Foundation Election Integrity Scorecard. (The Daily Signal is Heritage’s multimedia news organization.)

Heritage’s scorecard ranks the states and the District of Columbia based on factors such as voter ID implementation; accuracy of vote registration lists; absentee ballot management; restrictions on ballot trafficking, also known as ballot harvesting; access for election observers; vote-counting practices; and restrictions on private funding for election administration.

Rounding out the 10 worst states are Oregon at 48, Vermont, Washington and New Jersey in a tie, and Massachusetts, New York, and Nebraska at 42.

The District of Columbia came in at No. 25.

Nebraska scored 0 out of 20 in the category of voter ID, but scored well in other categories, Nebraska Secretary of State Robert Evnen, a Republican, said.

“If Nebraska had voter ID, we’d be in the top 15,” Evnen told The Daily Signal. “There is a voter ID initiative petition that would put it on the ballot in November. If it goes on the ballot, we believe that it would be overwhelmingly adopted.”