National debate on voter rights and election integrity

DEFENDING THE REPUBLIC

JUL 12, 2023

July 12, 2023

Dear Patriots,

We will always be looking for all and any efforts to improve and secure voting in American elections.

1- We will continue to hope that the states make the corrections to elections laws but welcome a national debate.

The Politics Brief

House Republicans Set to Propose Nationwide Election Integrity Bill Restricting Ballot Boxes, Absentee Voting

QUOTE: In a move that has rekindled a national debate on voter rights and election integrity, lawmakers in the Capitol Hill are gearing up for a critical round of debates over forthcoming election bills in the next few weeks. Central to the discussion will be the proposed restrictions on ballot drop boxes, a prominent element of Republican proposals nationwide.

The outcome of these discussions could potentially redefine the contours of the 2024 presidential election, creating new fault lines between proponents of expanded voter access and advocates of stringent election integrity measures.

In the coming weeks, Capitol Hill legislators are set to discuss forthcoming bills pertaining to voting and elections, potentially shaping the 2024 presidential election.

The GOP, on Monday, is poised to present the “American Confidence in Elections Act”, a piece of legislation referred to by Rep. Bryan Steil (R-WI) and House Administration Committee Chair, as the most conservative election-related bill seen in the House in over two decades.

The Republican bill encourages states to verify voter lists, carry out post-election audits, and prevent election officials from distributing absentee ballots without a request. It also proposes to implement checks on voter eligibility and terminate a Washington, D.C. policy that allows non-citizens to vote in local elections.

The GOP bill aligns with many Republican-led state legislatures that have introduced ID requirements for mail-in voting, reduced or eliminated ballot drop boxes, and constrained the ability of third parties to return ballots.

However, individual states are not idly standing by. Since 2021, Georgia, Iowa, Florida, and Texas have passed laws necessitating voter IDs, limiting drop boxes, or introducing other protective measures.

In contrast, states like California, New York, Oregon, Virginia, and Washington have moved in the direction of relaxed election integrity. Arizona, Missouri, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Tennessee have also made attempts or succeeded in implementing new voting and election laws during the same period.

2- Insidious efforts to take over voting laws and of course, it is full of Democrats. It is important to know about Arabella Advisors.

Free Beacon

Top Democratic Operatives Were Quietly Pulling the Strings at a Voting Rights Group. Lawyers Say They May Have Broken the Law.

QUOTE: The shady scheme implicates the Left’s largest dark money network, Arabella Advisors

In the months before the 2020 elections, the New Venture Fund had a problem.

The dark money behemoth, an arm of Arabella Advisors’ sprawling nonprofit network, was looking to challenge red-state voting laws that curtailed mail-in voting, but staffers were keenly aware of the hurdles they would face making inroads with Republican lawmakers.

They embarked on a project to take control of a 501(c)4 nonprofit, Secure Democracy, and lobby Republican lawmakers—and run ads against them—on voting rights issues from behind the veil of an ostensibly nonpartisan group.

For a time, they gained traction. In 2020 and 2021, Secure Democracy pushed lawmakers in over 20 states to expand mail-in balloting and other liberal voting initiatives. Those lawmakers were seemingly unaware that they were being influenced by political operatives working at the highest levels of the Democratic Party. New Venture Fund, after all, is the largest branch of the multibillion-dollar Democratic dark money clearinghouse controlled by Arabella Advisors.

“Every lawmaker at the state level was misled,” a former New Venture Fund employee involved in Secure Democracy’s lobbying operations, who requested anonymity due to fear of professional retaliation, told the Washington Free Beacon.

That tactic, lawyers say, may have put the charity on the wrong side of nonprofit tax laws. In October 2021, the New Venture Fund dismissed a senior executive who blew the whistle internally, arguing that the group was illegally using charitable resources to direct Secure Democracy’s 501(c)4 political activities. New Venture Fund abruptly shut down Secure Democracy a month later.

This story is based on a trove of internal New Venture Fund records obtained by the Free Beacon that suggest the group ran roughshod over tax laws in an effort to influence Republicans to change voting laws before and after the 2020 elections. Legal experts and watchdog groups said the New Venture Fund’s apparent use of charitable resources to direct Secure Democracy’s partisan political activity provides grounds for the IRS to investigate New Venture Fund and potentially strip it of its charity status.

The New Venture Fund operates hundreds of liberal projects that present themselves to the public as grassroots initiatives. The charity pays a hefty fee to Arabella Advisors, a for-profit business, to manage and provide legal compliance for its projects, according to a New Venture Fund employee handbook obtained by the Free Beacon.

3- States are laboratories for all manner of experiments. We will be watching and hoping this one is successful in Virginia.

Newsmax

Va. Gov. Youngkin Announces Push for Early Voting

QUOTE: Virginia Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin on Tuesday announced an initiative to encourage constituents to use early voting and vote-by-mail ballots to prevent Republicans from entering the commonwealth’s upcoming elections “down thousands of votes.”

“We’re making Virginia the best place to live, work, and raise a family, and to take us to the next level, I need your early vote this year,” Youngkin said in a video to promote an online portal, “Secure Your Vote Virginia,” reported the Washington Examiner. “We can’t go into the elections down thousands of votes. And you can secure your vote before Election Day.”

The website shows Republican voters how to sign up for Virginia’s absentee ballot list, as well as when and where they vote early, along with other relevant information.

“Republicans [have] got to stop sitting on the sidelines and allowing the Democrats to do a better job of voting early,” Youngkin said on Tuesday. “I’m tired of us going into elections down thousands of votes. And so SecureYourVoteVirginia.com provides an easy way to make a plan to vote early, to get on the permanent absentee ballot, [or] to vote early by mail.”

Republicans have shifted to embracing other methods of casting ballots, coming after several GOP leaders, including former President Donald Trump, discouraged early voting and using mail-in ballots in the 2022 and 2020 elections.

4- This is how citizens start the proscess of getting county election officials to use hand counted paper ballots.

Georgia Record

Paper Ballots And Hand Counting Shown In Action In Spalding County

QUOTE: Citizens gathered at the park on Solomon Street to hear from election experts and see how paper balloting and hand counting may be implemented.

Attendees heard from several experts in election operations. David Cross, widely recognized for his work on election integrity across Georgia, spoke about the opportunity for Counties to self-determine their method for conducting elections. He cited Georgia codes along with documented previous court cases in which Raffensperger went on the record stating they do not have authority over county election officials.

Clint Curtis also spoke of the need for both parties to be aware and working toward election integrity so that elections would have no need of constantly being questioned and distrusted. He then set the stage for the actual ballot counting demonstration. Mr. Curtis showed how a simple system. at a fraction of the cost of current voting machines, would allow ballot counting to be accomplished. Persons from both parties work side-by-side, while video taping the entire process and ensuring accuracy after each batch of 50 ballots.

Attendees at the event were already asking questions about how best to present the information to their local Counties and how to explain the process and costs to their Election departments.

While considering moving to paper ballots and hand counting, the City of Milton identified over $250,000 in cost savings in the first year alone. If they are any example, Counties may find reduced cost along with increased Voter confidence by considering a move to paper ballots.

5- How to become a millionaire. Or why it is so hard to make progress draining the The Swamp.

Don Surber

Having made her millions, a congresswoman will retire

QUOTE: Democrat Grace Napolitano of California announced this weekend that she will retire when this term ends in January 2025. She will be 88. That you can retire from Congress reflects an electorate that pays scant attention to those who represent them in Washington, as shown by the 98% re-election rate in the House.

Grace went from being poor when she entered Congress after the 1998 election to a net worth of over $5 million. This coincided with the national debt rising from under $6 trillion when she arrived to more than $32 trillion today. Congress has overspent its annual allocation of taxes by more than $1 trillion a year during her tenure.

She got rich. The nation went broke. While many are the members of Congress whose wealth explodes while they oversee federal spending and regulate the companies they invest in, Grace was exceptionally good at increasing her net worth. She did so well, she could be a Biden.

Open Secrets, which keeps tabs on political money, did a story on congressional personal wealth in 2018.

Leading the league was Grace Napolitano, whose net worth rose from $8,000 in 2008 to $913,004 10 years later — an 11,312.6% increase.

In the five years since, she has quintupled that money as her net worth has hit $5 million. Her stick-to-itness is admirable.

Members of Congress raking in millions while in office does not surprise or bother the press, which accepts the congressional excuse that politicians deserve the money because CEOs have salaries in the millions.

The difference is those CEOs create wealth while members of Congress create debt — more than a trillion dollars of additional debt each year.