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Election law attorney Maureen Riordan currently serves as Litigation Counsel for the non-profit election integrity law firm, The Public Interest Legal Foundation, pursuring cases that defend states' Constitutional rights to determine their own election procedures and statutes. Counsel Riordan started her career as a prosecutor for the Nassau County District Attorney’s Office, working her way from traffic court to prosecuting major cases. After moving to Virginia in 2020, Maureen accepted a job at the Department of Justice Voting Section, believing she would be working within the Department’s stated mission of enforcing voting laws and rooting out legitimate cases of discrimination. What she discovered was the Department was a weaponized arm of the far left’s anti-election integrity agenda, populated with attorneys and staff from far-left organizations, with an open agenda of tipping the scales away from equal application of law and targeting states it considered too conservative and Constitutionally sound in the area of voting laws. Maureen recounts her 20 years at the Department of Justice, doing her best to fairly enforce laws when her superiors openly directed her to work in coordination with outside left-wing groups. Describing important cases of election law, some decided by the Supreme Court, Maureen tells Cleta she was “flabbergasted” when she first arrived at DOJ, and Podcast subscribers will be as well with the revelations in this version of Who’s Counting With Cleta Mitchell.

Heather Honey lives in rural Pennsylvania, with corn in her backyard and election integrity on her mind. With a background in corporate investigations, open-source research and supply chain auditing, she was the perfect professional to personally discover election irregularities in her state and track them down through records requests, “outside the box” applications of technologies and forensic analysis. Heather’s work led her to create Verity Voting, an organization dedicated to election transparency, matching the numbers of ballots with the number of citizens voting, and many other critical aspects of keeping lawful votes secure and accurately recorded while identifying discrepancies and breaches of election statutes. In her interview with Cleta which is nothing short of stunning, Heather lays out in full detail significant problems with voter v. ballots counts, Pennyslvania’s Secretary of State blatantly blocking election integrity efforts while issuing political guidance that ignores law, and how Heather and her Verity Voting colleague have used brilliant and unique ways to quantify discrepancies and counter being blocked from access to public records by election officials. In addition to its great work in Pennsylvania, Verity Voting has worked on chain of custody other process and counting irregularities in Arizona, with a new report about to be issued on problems in Michigan. Don’t miss this insightful, blockbuster interview with Cleta Mitchell and Heather Honey.

Linda Kerns is a native Philadelphian and election integrity lawyer who has made it her professional mission to create a culture of clean and fair elections in the City of Brotherly love. Linda has been immersed in legal procedures and litigation for decades designed to provide oversight and transparency to elections in Philly and for the entire state of Pennsylvania. A long time friend and professional colleague of Cleta’s, Linda walks Cleta through her journey of election integrity advocacy from her first days as a lone GOP election worker in Philadelphia, to spending every election day in the City’s unique election court questioning suspicious “stacks” of dubious ballots (one by one) and on to advocating for election protections in the courts. As an PA election attorney for President Donald Trump in 2020, Linda had numerous threatening and obscene texts, emails and phone messages calling her a @#$% and telling her to ^&*+. Linda even had threats from other attorneys who were in the opposing political camp. Yet, she remains undaunted. Listen as Linda related her story of courage, tenacity and principle to Cleta in this edition of Who’s Counting.

An expert sheep herder as a young boy in Israel, Defend Florida co-founder Ro Grosman could never have imagined he would later use similar skills in creating an election integrity movement in Florida. Now a proud American, Ro uses his passion for liberty and experience as a tech entrepreneur to shepherd like-minded patriots and grassroots activists toward clear election integrity strategies and goals. Focused on cleaning up irregularities on Florida’s voter rolls, in only two years, Defend Florida has utilized strategies of canvassing the residences of registered voters, advocating for control mechanisms, and building relationships with election officials, legislators and the state executive to foster changes that boost voter confidence and by extension, turnout. In its canvassing activity alone, Defend Florida’s 500+ volunteers interacted with 14,000 registered voters, and submitted findings to officials documenting at least 5,500 irregularities, including deceased voters still (repeatedly) receiving ballots and addresses that proved non-existent. Ro and Cleta walk through how Defend Florida has successfully overcome resistance from local election officials and worked within the system to achieve positive results. Ro is expanding the impact of Defend Florida’s work into other states, and has advice for all in the election integrity movement on how to start identifying and fixing problems with registrations and absentee ballots nationwide. To learn more about Defend Florida, text “Defend” to 474747. To receive a copy of Defend Florida’s 8 Step E-Book on how to engage as a citizen activists, text “Book” to 91776

When Defend Florida co-founder Raj Doraisamy sat with Cleta to discuss his organization’s election integrity projects, he first spoke of growing up in African nations where freedom was scarce and corruption was rife. Warning, “I’m coming from your future,” Raj’s experience from Africa to arriving in America for college has a direct bearing on his embrace of the liberty ingrained in safe and fair elections. Defend Florida started as a grassroots group by two naturalized citizens (Raj and co-founder Ro Grosman) worried about election integrity, neither with any political experience. In a short period time, these citizen activists have grown Defend Florida into an organization with a significant positive impact on personal canvassing, cleaning voter rolls and documenting vote fraud. Defend Florida has expanded its reach nationally through Defend Our Union with a focus on engaging legislators and state executives as well as expanding its activist base and outreach to the media with its key findings. Defend Florida will soon be putting out an 8 Step E-Book on how to engage as a citizen activists for election integrity, and invites our Who’s Counting audience to text “Book” to 91776 to receive a link to this important publication when it becomes available.

Linda Szynkowicz of Middletown, Connecticut noticed something strange when she first ran for state representative in 2014. Campaign flyers mailed to “newly registered” voters were returned to her by the post office as “undeliverable”. Over several years, Linda tried to address this problem with the voter rolls in her county, trying to get local and state officials to pay attention and take action, but her concerns fell on deaf and indifferent ears. In 2020, Linda created the non-profit Fight Voter Fraud, Inc., and created a process and methodology to address individually-based irregularities in the voter rolls: voters who have moved, “live” at nonexistent addresses, or are deceased. Linda’s “Obit Squad” research team sampled death records of 2800 dead voters and found 500 of them voted in 2020 after they died - including one dead person who voted in person. Cleta and Linda discuss many of Fight Voter Fraud’s important — and often startling — findings, including the voting history of fifty voters from Connecticut’s Whiting Forensic Hospital – who are confined there because they have been deemed criminally insane and are, therefore, legally incompetent to vote. Yet they voted. How? What can be done about situations like that? Learn about Fight Voter Fraud’s expansion into other states, and its unique App designed for citizens to report potential incidents of voter fraud through text, photos and video. Meet Linda Szynkowicz, an engaged citizen who is working hard to clean America’s voter rolls…and how YOU can help.

During CPI’s Arizona Statewide Election Integrity Network Summit in March of 2022, Cleta sat down with election integrity powerhouse Gina Swoboda, who has singlehandedly made great progress in making every state’s voter rolls and vote histories available to citizens across the country, all while leading election reform efforts by the Arizona legislature. Gina has served in virtually every role in the election process in Arizona: she has worked for the State of Arizona’s election office, served as a local registrar, as a precinct officer, and a statewide trainer for poll observers – among other key roles. She is also the Executive Director of the Voter Reference Foundation (VoteRef.com,) a public website that publishes the voter rolls and election history of every state, making that key data accessible to citizens. With a passion for transparency in the election process, Gina was instrumental in moving the Arizona legislature to refer a popular voter ID measure, "Arizonans for Voter ID Act," to the ballot in 2022, enabling the people of Arizona to vote this year to impose voter ID on voters in Arizona’s elections. Believing “the only way to restore faith in the election process is being part of the election process,” Gina and Cleta discuss the importance of citizen engagement in the election system itself, as well as being part of the public policy debate on election measures. One of the fundamental aspects of protecting elections is cleaning voter rolls – and that task is vastly improved when citizens are able to access every state’s voters rolls and voting histories – and to vest power with engaged citizens to identify dead voters, voters who no longer live at their registration addresses, voters registered improperly at PO Boxes and vacant addresses, and more. Federal law requires voter list maintenance that should be available to all by federal law, but are blocked by state imposed procedures that deny citizens access to the voter rolls or charge prices that make it cost prohibitive for citizens groups to purchase the voter data in many states. The Voter Reference Foundation is determined to overcome those barriers, and currently publishes voter data from twenty (20) states with more coming online on a continual basis. Transparency in elections and accountability of election officials – those are the twin goals of Gina Swoboda and the Voter Reference Foundation.

When sports fan Scott Rasmussen joined his father Bill to co-found ESPN in 1979 as documented in Bill’s book Sports Junkies Rejoice: The Birth of ESPN, he never imagined his career would take yet another turn as his entrance into polling in the early 1990s rocketed the influence of public opinion into the forefront of American politics. First as the founder of the Rasmussen Reports and its influential Daily Tracking Poll and now at as President of RMG Research, Scott continues to track the views of Americans, including gathering their opinions on election integrity. He crafts his questions to reach past political elites into the true views of American voters in all geographic and demographic areas. In his conversation with Cleta, Scott reveals the three election integrity principles and reforms solidly supported by every voter demographic — by over 80 percent. American voters have told Scott that these policies are what is needed to restore their trust in the US election system. What are they? Find out in this episode of Who’s Counting with Cleta Mitchell, and read Scott’s optimistic view of America in his book The Sun is Still Rising: Politics Has Failed But America Will Not. Note: Neither Scott Rasmussen, ScottRasmussen.com, nor RMG Research, Inc. have any affiliation with Rasmussen Reports. While Scott Rasmussen founded that firm, he left more than eight years ago and has had no involvement since that time.

Lynn Taylor, president of the Virginia Institute for Public Policy, describes in this episode of “Who’s Counting?” how thousands of Virginians, who saw disturbing irregularities in Virginia’s 2020 presidential election, decided to take firm action to restore the public trust in the state’s elections. Numerous grassroots organizations came together to form the Virginia Fair Elections Coalition, a statewide election integrity network that helped create local election integrity task forces in Virginia’s largest counties, who became citizen watchdogs over the election offices, the General Registrars and the local electoral boards, and which also trained and equipped enough election officials and poll watchers to fill 85 percent of the 14,000 available citizen oversight slots in Virginia’s 2021 statewide and state House elections. The Virginia Institute's election integrity infrastructure program — now known as “The Virginia Model” — is a successful plan that can be implemented in any state with an adaptation of that state’s specific election laws and protocols. Lynn walks through the formation of the task forces with Cleta, from poll watcher training, protecting low-income and senior voters, understanding voting machines, and verifying absentee ballots. She relates important coalition experiences, one of which led to the Virginia Institute’s filing suit against the Fairfax County election officer who refused to follow state statutes for verifying the identity of individuals requesting absentee ballots. Calling for organizations to “check their logos and egos at the door” to protect election integrity, and training volunteers to be “right and polite” in all circumstances, Lynn’s spearheading of this effort proved it is possible to return trust in the system to voters when engaging the citizen observers in roles that are not just allowed by law, but demanded by it. Click here to download a PDF copy of the Virginia Fair Elections Model Guide, or email the Virginia Institute at info@virginiainstitute.org to request a hard copy of this important pamphlet. And don’t forget to download the Citizens Guide to Election Integrity Infrastructure Citizens-Guide.pdf (whoscounting.us) so you can start a local task force in your county or community.

Garland Favorito is the founder and leader of VoterGA.org. Garland is a career Information Technology (IT) professional with over 40 years of in-depth experience and over 17 years of volunteer research into electronic voting systems. He also serves as a volunteer Elections Director for the Constitution Party of Georgia. Garland first became alarmed nearly twenty years ago about a proposed voting machine system for Georgia after watching a demonstration. He began to warn others about what he calls “unverifiable” machine voting, where a voter does not get confirmation of his or her vote, and the system fails to protect against potential for manipulation of the systems. Garland founded VoterGA.org which advocates for transparency and accountability in all aspects of voting, Garland has significant concerns with the lack of a verifiable paper trail in machine voting and has spent years raising the alarm and educating citizens about the need for all voting systems to provide each voter with an instant record of his vote and to follow basic standards of security against Garland and Cleta discuss their frustration with the lawsuits filed in the state that documented irregularities and illegal votes that were cast and counted in the 2020 Presidential election in Georgia Listen as they discuss the more than 17K missing Fulton ballot images, and the election surveillance videos in over 100 counties, that have magically disappeared or been destroyed since voting day 2020. They dive deep into the election problems in Georgia and how citizens can and must get involved to help protect our elections.

As chair of the Wisconsin State Assembly’s Committee on Campaigns and Elections, Republican State Assemblywoman Janet Brantjen has held hearings and collected documentary evidence about the corruption by some of the state’s Democrat mayors and election officials who used private money — “Zuck Bucks” — to turn election offices into campaign machines for Democrats. Rep. Brantjen fearlessly uncovered the liberal infrastructure in her state, and tells Cleta that the story of the manipulation of voting in the 2020 election “is still unraveling.” In addition to exposing the interference of liberal anti-election integrity advocacy group like the Center for Tech and Civic Life and the Center for Election Innovation and Research and their hiring of cynically named partisan “vote navigators," Brantjen has also researched and conducted hearings into grossly inaccurate voter rolls and other election integrity problems that are an open invitation to fraud in Wisconsin. More information about Rep. Brantjen, hearings transcripts, and numerous election integrity resources can be found here: https://legis.wisconsin.gov/assembly/22/brandtjen.

Mac Warner is a true American patriot and hero. While completing his final deployment in Afghanistan as an officer of the US Army, Secretary Warner filed his candidate papers to run for Secretary of State of West Virginia. Elected in 2016 and reelected in 2020, Secretary Warner has made it his mission to ensure that West Virginia citizens have confidence in the outcome of their elections – and that they are never dubious about whether the election outcome was manipulated or subjected to improper partisan influences – from any party or candidate. Secretary Warner describes why he believes that the integrity of America’s elections is fundamental to preserving our country and that the principle of honest, fair elections – conducted in accordance with law – are worth fighting for. Secretary Warner is an inspiring public leader. Listen to his story of how an Army officer became dedicated to election administration as part of his call to serve his country. Mac Warner is worth getting to know. You’ll see why when you watch / listen to this episode of Who’s Counting? with Cleta Mitchell.

Pennsylvania State Representative Seth Grove (R-York), Chairman of the House State Government Committee, has relentlessly identified myriad problems with the state’s election systems including the uneven application of voting statutes, ignored in blue counties while followed in red counties in 2020. Separating and tackling each election integrity problem- from unvalidated voting registrations to unsecured ballot boxes - Rep. Grove discusses his committee’s legislative solutions. The reforms would ensure common sense measures like time limits on vote counting to unique fixes such as creating enhanced voter registration cards to serve as voter ID, among many other provisions. And probably most important, Rep Grove’s bill outlines a model for post-election audits that every state should adopt. Rep. Grove tells a fascinating story of fighting local corruption, state officials who put partisanship over voters, and a governor who vetoes a bill without “knowing what’s in it.” His 2020 PA Election Report can be found here: http://www.pahousegop.com/2020electio...

New York Rep. Claudia Tenney and Cleta present an experience-based and in-depth overview of what to fight for — and against — in the battle to secure all American votes, including the role of the House Election Integrity Caucus. New York Congresswoman Claudia Tenney is an attorney and small business owner who has first hand experience with liberal partisan gerrymandering and interference in ballot integrity in her district at the hands of the Left’s chief election integrity disrupter, Democrat attorney Marc Elias. Rep. Tenney’s race has also been targeted by “Zuckerbucks.” Adamantly opposed to any attempts by liberals to suppress the will of the voting public, Ms. Tenney co-founded the House Election Integrity Caucus — designed to both inform voters about the falsehoods and disinformation about election security coming from the left, as well as to advocate for legislation such as the “End Zuckerbucks Act.” Information on the House Election Integrity Caucus can be found here.

After the November 2020 election, Ned Jones began asking questions about how elections really work. He wondered who influences the election officials, who does business with the election offices, who are the vendors and contractors and are any of those influences and entities political in nature. What he discovered is a web of entities, both nonprofit and for profit, that have been created over the course of the past decade, funding by leftwing billionaires, engaged in election structures and systems across the country. Primarily engaged in building an infrastructure to support voting by mail, the tentacles of these entities reach far and wide into our entire election system. Ned’s work shows what one determined, patriotic American can learn and share with others about the changes that have occurred in our elections without our realizing it. And it underscores why every local and state election office needs the eyes, ears, and presence of conservatives as part of their operations.

As part of Virginia Week in the Election Integrity Network, join Cleta today as she talks with Shelley Oberlander, Chairman of the Loudon County, Virginia Election Integrity Task Force. Loudon County has emerged as ground zero for parents wresting control over their local school boards and their children’s education. Shelley describes a similar effort of citizens in Loudon County engaging at the local election office. Shelley is a homeschool mom who sets a great example of citizen engagement to protect election integrity.

Cleta talks with Christine Brim, Chairman of the Fairfax County, VA Election Integrity Task Force. Christine walks through how the task force came together in 2021, creating citizen engagement in the election process in Virginia’s most populous county- and what the Task Force is doing in 2022.

In 2021, a group of citizens activists created a network to promote election integrity in Virginia that was highly effective in the bid to reclaim election integrity from the ground up and the beginning of a critical election integrity infrastructure. In this Podcast, Cleta refers to the election integrity activists in her series touting Virginia as a model for election integrity as “smart, dedicated, engaged patriots.” Find out why — and how we all can be engaged in protecting the ballots of all Americans. A “don’t miss” mini-series from Who’s Counting with Cleta Mitchell.

Cleta talks with election law expert Hans von Spakovsky about the key details of Heritage’s new comprehensive Election Integrity Scorecard that rates every state and Washington, DC on their election laws and statutes for election fairness and security. The scorecard is not a performance indicator, but covers twelve broad legal protections including voter ID, ballot harvesting rules, integrity of voter rolls. It also provides forty-seven criteria to create a plan for best practices. Cleta and Hans also discuss lawsuit abuse by the left that harms vote security, and the dangers of election officials receiving private money for “get out the vote” efforts that fall far out of their purview. Together with Election Integrity Network’s Citizen’s Guide to Building an Election Integrity Infrastructure, these two resources are invaluable tools for legislators, election officials, and citizens to engage and ensure there is zero tolerance for any unlawful vote. Hans von Spakosvky is the Senior Legal Fellow for The Heritage Foundation’s Meese Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. He is a former official with the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice, and the former Chairman of both the Federal Election Commission and the Fulton County, Georgia County Election Board. His new book, Our Broken Elections: How the Left Changed the Way You Vote , co-authored with National Review’s John Fund, is available on Amazon.

Election Assistance Commissioner Donaldn Palmer delves into the details of EAC’s mission to secure accurate vote counts by setting standards for voting systems, funding security initiatives, collecting voting data, and acting as a clearing house for system best practices. Commissioner Palmer addresses Cleta’s critical observation, “election offices need to go back to administering elections according to state law and not trying to increase (partisan) turnout” by explaining the EAC’s work with registered voting machine manufacturers, addressing antiquated voting systems and software updates, and testing and certifying voting data. If “the devil is in the details,” Commissioner Palmer has the inside track. Appointed by President Donald J. Trump, Navy veteran and former JAG officer, Donald Palmer is a Commissioner and Chairman of the federal Election Assistance Commission. Mr. Palmer is an experienced election integrity official, serving in Florida as Director of Elections and later as Secretary of Virginia’s State Board of Elections. He also served in the Voting Section of the Department of Justice Civil Rights Division.

Kim Strassel, prize-winning Wall Street Journal columnist and editorial board member, discusses the runup to the 2020 election and how the left manipulated election laws and offices to impact the outcome. She urges citizens to “get engaged in their electoral systems” in order to fight the left’s infiltration of election offices nationwide. Kim is the author of Potomac Watch, a WSJ weekly column that appears on Fridays.

In this second episode of the interview with Scott Walter, hear how Mark Zuckerberg spent over $400 million to turn out the Democratic vote for Biden in 2020 and got a $200 million tax deduction in the process.

The Heritage Foundation Senior Legal Fellow Hans von Spakovsky recounts to Cleta Mitchell a fascinating and inspiring personal family history that led him from corporate law to becoming one of America’s most important election integrity legal experts and proponents. Hans is the co-author with John Fund of a new book, “Our Broken Elections: How the Left Has Changed the Way You Vote”, released from Encounter Books on November 2, 2021. Join Hans and Cleta as they discuss his new book, the broken election systems wrecked by the left, the criticality of accurate voting rolls, voter ID, and how the radical left is using lies and creating institutional election corruption to limit our liberty and impose its oppressive agenda.

Mollie Hemingway --Federalist Senior Editor and author of the new book Rigged reveals how big tech, a propaganda-driven liberal media, and Democrat strategy corrupted the 2020 elections. Mollie joins Cleta Mitchell to reflect on lessons learned and where the integrity of US elections is headed as they both draw on experience to identify problems and suggest solutions. Will we ever have fair elections again? Will mail-in ballots remain the Democrat's strategic plan for vote manipulation? Listen to this episode of Who’s Counting with Cleta Mitchell to find out.