Counting

Fighting State-Sponsored Anti-Election Integrity Propaganda Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer at the conservative news outlet, The Federalist, which covers issues and angles ignored or lied about in the leftwing media – it counteracts false narratives and presents important information to concerned Americans. Shawn covers a number of topics with a key focus on election integrity. Not only does he research and write about the left’s goal of disrupting free and fair elections, but he understands their strategy. He has keen insights into the interaction between leftwing billionaire dark money and the one-sided political collusion between government security agencies and the media – including the interference orchestrated in the 2020 presidential campaign by now-Secretary of State Antony Blinken. And then, of course, there’s Hunter Biden and why his laptop is an affront to honest elections. Did his laptop and the deliberate evasion collusion between government and media keep any conversation about the Biden family’s foreign business dealings out of the reach of the American public? Yes, it did. Could one laptop potentially change the outcome of a U.S. election? Watch/listen as Cleta and Shawn connect the dots, provide the answers, give specific examples, and name names in the pursuit of identifying and fighting against one-sided, leftwing ideological corruption and collusion disrupting our nation’s election systems. We hope you listen/watch and share this episode of Who’s Counting? With Cleta Mitchell and subscribe to receive Cleta’s latest podcast interview each week.

Fred Lucas is the Chief News Correspondent for The Daily Signal The Daily Signal: Policy News, Conservative Analysis and Opinion, a project of The Heritage Foundation. Starting with his high school newspaper, Fred was covering politics at any early age and went on to legislative coverage in Kentucky and Connecticut before joining the Daily Signal. He is also the author of The Myth of Voter Suppression: The Left’s Assault on Clean Elections, where he likens today’s efforts by the left to subvert elections and manipulate voters to the “old days” of New York’s Tammany Hall corruption and the cruelty of Jim Crow. What has changed in current elections? Not the goal, not the cynicism; just the methods progressives use to destroy election integrity. Now they have technology and a compliant leftwing media to assist them to head back to the future to disrupt elections to favor their Democrat fellow travelers. Fred discusses his research and hard-hitting coverage of election integrity with Cleta, including the voter suppression lie, the left’s attempt at true disenfranchisement of voters, the citizen intimidation inherent in the Biden Administration’s order for federal agencies to register voters, and the left’s continued attempts to buy election offices like they were a loaf of bread. We hope you listen/watch and share this episode of Who’s Counting? With Cleta Mitchell and subscribe to receive Cleta’s latest podcast interview each week.

Meet Jerry Holland, the incoming Supervisor of Elections in Duval County, Florida, who assumes that office on July 1, 2023. But this isn’t Jerry’s first time at the bat of public service in Duval County. Having served on the Jacksonville City Council, including serving as the President of the City Council, and other local commissions important to the residents of Duval County, Jerry was Supervisor of Elections in Duval County from 2005, when he served out the term of his predecessor, and was then twice elected to the office.In 2015, Jerry was elected as the Duval County Property Appraiser, which oversees the property tax laws of the state of Florida and Duval County. Jerry was unopposed when he ran again for Supervisor of Elections this year. In this episode of Who’s Counting, Cleta talks with Jerry about how election officials can restore the trust and faith of the citizens in the election process. They talk about a wide range of issues of concern to election integrity activists and leaders:the security of voting technology, ensuring that only legally eligible citizens vote, making sure that the election systems and procedures are fair to all voters, balancing access to the polls with protecting the integrity of the process, cleaning voter rolls, and more. Most importantly, according to Jerry, election officials and administrators adhere to a commitment to transparency and accountability.And Jerry notes that some of the mistrust that has arisen regarding the election system in 2020 arose from actions of election officials, such as covering the election office windows to keep out citizen observation of the election process. Jerry was a strong leader for the integrity of Duval County’s elections during his previous tenure as Supervisor of Elections, and has renewed his commitment to working with the election integrity volunteers in Florida today. A shining example of the right approach with the right principles, Jerry Holland will no doubt be a welcome member of the Florida SOE network – and a leader and example to his colleagues in other counties. Share the podcast, subscribe to Who’s Counting? with Cleta Mitchell, and visit our website:www.whoscounting.us, sign up to become part of the election integrity movement and help save America’s elections, one county at a time.

Living up to its nickname of the “Equality State,” Wyoming is putting election integrity first to protect its freedom and its voters. Currently leading this charge is its newly elected Secretary of State, Chuck Gray. The Secretary discusses with Cleta how, as a former Wyoming legislator, he developed a keen sense of the relationship between the ballot box and public policy -- from protecting the pre-born, defending Wyoming’s natural resource economy, or keeping destructive leftwing ESG (Environmental, social and corporate governance) policies from wreaking havoc on Wyoming businesses. Secretary Gray is working through a “to do” list of election integrity protections with his former colleagues in the state legislature. They successfully ended “crossover” voting where members of one party can register on primary day to vote for a candidate in the opposite party, thus muddling results and stealing the ability of Republicans to choose a Republican candidate, for example. He has worked to harden and clarify voter ID laws for in person and absentee voting, increase accuracy in the state’s voter rolls, and defeat Ranked Choice Voting before it even emerged from committee. His underlying election integrity principles are to increase transparency and protect his state from machinations from leftwing organizations from outside Wyoming from compromising election security and destabilizing elections. In this interview with Cleta, Secretary Gray makes two other critical points. One, that federal election laws have undermined states’ rights to determine their own election procedures in a way that harms voters. He and Cleta also agree that all citizens must act as “sentinels” to ensure proper election administration and trustworthy results that increase voter confidence. We hope you listen/watch and share this episode of Who’s Counting? With Cleta Mitchell and subscribe to receive Cleta’s latest podcast interview each week.

Dr. John Eastman is a constitutional conservative and legal scholar who currently serves as the Senior Legal Fellow at The Claremont Institute. Dr. Eastman started his legal career as a clerk to Justice Clarence Thomas and, as a practicing attorney, quickly learned that working as counsel to conservative causes and clients was often frowned and ultimately blocked by big law firms and then in 2020, even the judiciary.

Officials in Tarrant County, Texas (Fort Worth) have taken a bold approach to keeping their elections safe and secure, and hope their model will be a blueprint for localities across the country. In this episode of Who’s Counting? Cleta interviews Tarrant County Judge Tim O’Hare about his county’s program to ensure local elections are conducted according to law. As a county judge, Judge O’Hare has governmental responsibility for the state’s 3th largest county. An attorney and property investor, O’Hare was elected County Judge in November of 2022. Campaigning on a platform of securing Tarrant County elections, Judge O’Hare worked in partnership with his County Sheriff and County District Attorney to create a formal, governmental Election Integrity Task Force. The task force has a hotline and those calls trigger a series of official responses and investigation by a Sheriff’s deputy specially assigned to the task force, and if merited, a designated Assistant District Attorney to pursue prosecution. In the few months this task force has been active, and against a backdrop of a Tarrant County ballot harvesting scheme that made national headlines, there are already four substantial cases working their way through that system. Cleta and Judge O’Hare discuss specific threats to elections in Tarrant County, Texas and nationwide - and the merits of this critical program – both as a prosecutorial responsibility and a deterrent to any bad actors looking to game or corrupt the system. As Cleta notes, elections are all conducted locally, and there must be a local focus on ensuring their integrity. Citizen task forces are making an enormous difference in protecting elections – and the effort of a local government task force focused on election integrity is a model for every county and city across the country. We hope you listen/watch and share this episode of Who’s Counting and subscribe to receive Cleta’s latest podcast interview each week.

Cleta’s guest this week is Kathleen (“Kathy”) Harms, whose official title is co-director of the Tennessee Free and Fair Elections coalition, which is part of the Election Integrity Network. The organization is dedicated to ensuring that Tennessee’s elections are being administered lawfully and accurately. Kathy is one of the Volunteer State’s most important volunteer leaders. She and her network are wisely focused on the basics: authenticating voters, authenticating ballots and authenticating vote counts. Simple, right? But not easy and often not done. Leading the EIN’s National Election Integrity Working Group on State Legislation, Kathy understands the critical importance of educating state legislatures to the problems in the election systems. The Tennessee coalition is researching, investigating and challenging election procedures in their state that discourage or even suppress voters. These include the danger of voting centers instead of precinct voting. And Kathy has been consistently educating election integrity volunteers to work with their local election offices, and to help ensure that election administrators perform their only job (administering elections,) creating positive relationships with election officials despite differences, and protecting the rights of poll observers. This latest episode of Who’s Counting? With Cleta Mitchell is crammed with important information about how national, local and state coalitions are working together to restore election confidence. It creates a great opportunity for us to thank and congratulate all our partners who work with us on EIN’s state coalitions and through our National Working Groups. Subscribe to the podcast, share with your friends, and become part of the Election Integrity Network.

Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft has proven to be a thought and policy leader in the election integrity movement as well as a stalwart champion to promote accessibility, security and credibility for Show Me State voters. After starting his career as a mechanical engineer and then as an attorney, it didn’t take long for Secretary Ashcroft to continue his family’s legacy of public service to Missourians. Now a two-term Secretary of State, Ashcroft was first elected in 2015 with a promise to take significant action to protect his state’s voters and for Missouri to be able to control its elections without interference from arguably un-constitutional federal incursion. The Secretary has been a champion of individual rights and business innovations for his state, with election integrity a priority. He was a key player in ensuring that no private monies nor any in-kind donations from private organizations and individuals can be provided to election offices or officials – Missouri’s comprehensive “no Zuckbucks” laws are a model for other states. Cleta and Secretary Ashcroft discuss many important aspects of election integrity, including the need for transparency in election procedures, with a steady eye always anticipating what the left might do next to weaken election protections. After realizing that ERIC (the Electronic Registration Information Center) put more restrictions and limitations on Missouri’s voter rolls rather than meeting its ostensible (false) purpose in cleaning them, the Secretary tried to work with ERIC leadership to improve its services to his state – to no avail. In March of 2023, Missouri became the third state to withdraw from ERIC, a taxpayer-funded, leftwing private organization that meets none of its promises to its member states. An outspoken constitutionalist and federalist, Secretary Ashcroft notes that “if states control their own policy, some will get it right and some will get it wrong. But if the federal government controls state policy, every state gets it wrong.” We hope you listen/watch, share this episode of Who’s Counting, and subscribe to receive Cleta’s latest podcast interview each week.

Election Integrity Network’s Citizen's Research Project is a nationwide collaborative effort engaging volunteers who are researching the left’s billionaire-funded efforts to manipulate election results by taking over local election offices. The Citizen Research Project is directed by Ned Jones, Deputy Director of the Election Integrity Network, who is Cleta’s guest on this week’s episode of Who’s Counting? After years of public service in New Jersey, Ned moved to Virginia and served as a poll watcher in 2020. He was alarmed by what he saw. Seeking answers to election issues and problems he had witnessed, Ned began researching the outside influences in elections. He identified myriad left-wing non-profits mobilized to influence and manipulate every aspect of the election system. Ned researched the granddaddy of all left-wing billionaire influence over elections: the Mark Zuckerberg hundreds of millions of dollars used to turn election offices into Democrat turnout machines in key Democratic counties and cities in 2020. It was enough to elect Joe Biden. Now, we see Zuckerbuxx 2.0 arriving on the scene, except now it is billionaire Bill Gates leading the charge to manipulate the 2024 elections. Ned talks about how citizen researchers are unearthing more information every week about this massive effort to undermine the independence of America’s elections. Ned directs the Citizen's Research weekly National Working Group (join at www.Whoscounting.US). In this episode of Who’s Counting? Ned describes the National Working Group and the information identified by the citizen researchers. Join us for a discussion with Ned Jones and learn how you can be part of stopping the invasion of election offices by left-wing advocacy groups. Join Ned and hundreds of other patriots across the nation who are fighting the Leftwing billionaire takeover of the election systems. Listen / watch this episode of Who’s Counting? Share the podcast. Subscribe.

An experienced and expert researcher, Hayden Ludwig of Restoration of America has taken a deep dive into election integrity’s “enemy camp” and come back up with a treasure trove of detail, documentation and evidence of the left’s corruptive influence on elections and election procedures – and increasingly using government agencies and taxpayer funding to accomplish their goals to manipulate the election process. Now Director of Policy Research at Restoration of America, Hayden sharpened his research skills while at Capital Research Center, assisting with its expose of Arabella Advisors – the mothership of liberal dark money billionaire donors and backroom political influence. At Restoration of America, Hayden is focused on fighting back against the left’s corruption of non-profit organizations that have historically been the backbone of America’s community engagement – but which have now been weaponized by the left to achieve partisan election victories. These leftist nonprofits have become morally (and legally) compromised through their successful manipulation of election results. And their leaders now proudly urge left-leaning donors to financially support these so-called leftist charitable groups rather than giving directly to candidates, because the nonprofits can accomplish more than the candidates’ campaigns. Why? Because the nonprofits are focused on controlling the election systems themselves….which is a frightening threat to self-governance in our country. Hayden describes the corruption inherent in the ZuckBucks programs (billionaires funding government election offices), as well as the Biden Administration’s Executive Order 14019 that turned federal agency interactions with citizens requesting federal assistance into a Democrat Get-out-the-Vote machine (using our federal tax dollars), and, most recently, Hayden has exposed the abject corruption of the left’s ERIC (Electronic Voter Information Center) system. Cleta and Hayden discuss in great detail the beginning of ERIC – from initial funding by George Soros, to the foundational lies it sold to member states in signing them up, to its unlawful transfer of sensitive, personal information to leftwing third party registration “non-profits” – its true mission. Through ERIC, taxpayers are paying the costs to supply their own private data to liberal non-profits who are not allowed under law to access such information. These groups focus on “eligible but unregistered” voters in demographic blocs that traditionally favor Democrats and require state tax dollars to be used to register those targeted voters. Hayden and Cleta discuss the facts of these leftist plans and projects that manipulate our election systems and government agencies, using our tax dollars to cement partisan political victories. It is a grim portrait of the threats to our election systems – and a reminder that only citizen engagement to fight back will we save the system from the radical left and their billionaire donors.

Cleta interviews Jason Frazier, a citizen volunteer, and self-described ‘data geek’ who has taken it upon himself to examine the voter rolls in his home county of Fulton County, GA. Jason, as a nonpartisan citizen just interested in clean data, has identified many issues, problems, and anomalies in the Fulton County voter rolls. In this podcast, Jason shares his expertise as a data analyst with an MBA, who ‘for fun’ looks at the lists, finds issues, and beats his head against the bureaucratic wall to clean voter rolls in his home county.

West Virginia Secretary of State Mac Warner is a West Point graduate and attorney who served in the U.S. Army Judge Advocate General Corps. As such, he knows the law and understands the value of rules and procedures. Leaning on expertise acquired through those experiences, Mac is a leading advocate for election integrity both in his state and nationwide by his interaction with other Secretaries of State through personal relationships and participation in the National Association of Secretaries of States. A key responsibility of any Secretary of State is ensuring proper and lawful adherence to that state’s voting laws. This sacred duty also includes protecting voters of that state from unlawful, unconstitutional intrusion or manipulation from the federal government and any of its alphabet soup of agencies to disrupt or destabilize free and fair elections. On March 6, 2023, just a few days after this episode was recorded, Secretary Warner took a big step in protecting his state's voters when he announced that West Virginia would join Alabama, Louisiana, Florida and Missouri in revoking its participation in ERIC (Electronic Records Information Center) a non-government organization that poses as a “voter roll clean up” entity that cleaned up nothing, but is a conduit to state sharing of private data about unregistered citizens to third party leftwing voter activist organizations. Maintaining voter rolls is also one of the Secretary’s key duties, and after entering office he and his staff worked with county clerks to remove over 365,000 names from the state’s voter rolls by researching death and address change records. Cleta and Mac discuss a wide range of topics from the incursion and blatant bias of federal agencies such as the FBI, DHS and DOJ into state and local election procedures, true disinformation about election security spread by these agencies in cooperation with leftwing organizations, proven interference in our elections by non-state actors, the role of technology and cyber security, and utilizing strict guidelines in protecting American voters’ ballots. Secretary Warner notes that real voter suppression comes from the erosion of voter confidence caused by false talking points and unlawful voting procedure changes – all from the left and the federal government – that lead to confusion and disillusionment of the voting public. The West Virginia Secretary of State proves that good governance is possible, but only when elected officials put rule of law ahead of self-serving and manipulative partisan politics. That describes Secretary Mac Warner in a nutshell.

Dave Carver of New Jersey was a senior pharmaceutical executive with decades of experience in federally regulated data and software, with a gift for spotting anomalies and irregularities in data. As a longtime volunteer sports coach, he also knows how to build a multi-partisan team. These two skill sets have merged into Dave’s mission in his retirement to ensure the accuracy of New Jersey’s voter rolls. Simple, yet genius – Dave has created a county-based system to identify inaccurate voter registrations in each New Jersey county. First, he receives a monthly voter registration report from the state. He and his team then use software to compare the state data with county voter rolls. And, surprise! The two databases never match. The second step is to compile the inconsistent information and present it (as Cleta always says, “be right and polite”) to the local election officials. Dave and his team have intentionally created collegial relationships with these offices, and most county officials appreciate the information, resources and tools Dave provides to help the election officials do their jobs better. Dave and his fellow volunteers have produced real results, and can show that their program does work. Inaccurate registrations are being removed from the rolls in New Jersey: duplicates, dead people, and other entries that should not be included on the voter registration lists are being removed regularly. As Dave notes to Cleta, “data tells a story.” And Dave’s story serves as a guide for increasing the accuracy of voter rolls around the country. Dave is an inspiration to all who have toiled in the vineyards trying to make the voter rolls a true reflection of the list of voters eligible to legally vote. Plus, Dave is an inspiration to those who wonder what they can do, since ‘they are just one person…’ Dave is just one person…who is making a giant difference in election integrity.

The Left’s Plans to Brainwash Local Election Officials Against Election Integrity and Transparency. Jason Snead is the Executive Director of the Honest Elections Project, an organization that is a national leader in the effort to protect the rights of every lawful voter while advocating for pro-election integrity protections. The Honest Elections Project recently partnered with the pre-eminent North Carolina state think tank, The John Locke Foundation, to research and publish an explosive new report on “Zuckbucks” 2.0 – the US. Alliance for Election Excellence. This unholy Alliance, funded by the usual cadre of far left donors, is progressives' latest attempt to create their own outposts in election offices through a series of lies, manipulations and payoffs. Essentially, their goal is to brainwash local election officials to see the role of election administrators as turnout machines for progressive voters and voting blocs. The intrusion of private money, personnel, and organizations into election offices through the Zuckbucks program in 2020 concerned many voters as they understood this was a cynical, one-sided, partisan attempt to use election offices to recruit liberal voters. In response, 24 states have banned this practice since 2020. Undaunted, the left has created its own ‘work around’– funding not only election offices, but also ‘training’ election officials to view election administration through their leftist lens, using the ‘expertise’ of leftwing activists and organizations who infiltrate the election offices through this Alliance. Same left wing billionaires, same plan to manipulate and control election outcomes with incursions into election procedures – the only thing different is how they plan to accomplish this: through skirting the laws and creating a bait and switch program aimed at election officials. The information in the HEP and John Locke Report, found here, was achieved through research and an aggressive plan of public records requests, or “FOIAs,” sent to election offices announced by the Alliance as having been ‘chosen’ for the brainwashing program. Watch and listen as Cleta and Jason reveal in detail the level of dishonesty and amount of left-wing money the U.S. Alliance for Election Excellent is willing to sow throughout what should be our non-partisan election systems, that are supposed to serve all voters equally, without partisan bias or advantage. Watch! Listen! Subscribe! Share!

Scott Walter is president of Capital Research Center -- “America’s Investigative Think Thank” -- an organization researching and reporting on the influence of special interests on policy, politics – and elections. Its Influence Watch project is an invaluable encyclopedia of over 10,000 public policy influencers and highlights the undue influence of left wing money, its donors and its “non-profit” organizations. Just a few of these include e-Bay billionaire Pierre Omidyar and his massive funding of anti-election integrity groups, Mark Zuckberg’s “Zuck Bucks” and his personal distortion of election outcomes as if they were a board game, and the ultimate leftwing dark money organization, Arabella Advisors and its legal puppeteer, attorney Marc Elias. The left mocks non-profit rules and their organizations do not influence campaigns and candidates – but elections procedures. Their activity makes clear their goal to suppress election integrity by changing the process in a way that increases one-sided, Democrat, partisan results. Scott describes the three-headed focus of the left’s billionaires in accomplishing partisan goals while hiding behind “non-partisan” organizations: 1. Manipulating Census results to favor inaccurate representation favoring blue states; 2. Influencing partisan voter turnout blue areas primarily through private Zuck Bucks, and 3. Pushing partisan redistricting. Listen as Scott and Cleta reveal how the left was successful in warping Census results and creating one-sided Democrat turnout in targeted areas that skewed national election results. They also analyze 2020 results, when the same party that won the presidency lost Congressional seats and had a net loss of state legislatures - a Zuck Buck backfire. Describing the left’s “tsunami of cash” that funds initiatives that corrupt election results – and election officials – they expose the emerging agenda and changes in the left’s new tricks to purchase election results and election officials in an arena where no private money should ever have influence. Private money pressed into the left’s service at local election offices is unethical, dangerous, and steals the political voices of too many voters. It suppresses accurate outcomes. And as Cleta notes, it is the job of political parties to get out the vote – not election officials whose one job is to administer elections according to statute.

Have you ever wondered why we talk about candidates being on a “ticket”? What is the history of the secret ballot? Have elections always been run by government? Why should we care about private funding or management of elections? What is the Election Integrity Network? What difference did EIN make in 2032? What difference can it make in 2023? Cleta tackles these and other questions on this episode of Who’s Counting? Listen. Subscribe. Share.

Please join Cleta as she interviews Verity Vote founder and Pennsylvania Fair Elections Coalition Chair Heather Honey, recently called as an expert witness in the post-2022 Arizona election integrity court case. With her election integrity experience, expertise as an open source investigator and ability to review and interpret the accuracy of ballot reporting systems and procedures, Heather traveled to Maricopa County, Arizona to investigate and report on allegations of mishandled ballots, chain of custody failures, lack of compliance with state law and reporting requirements, and the post-election appearance of ~25,000 mystery ballots. Heather reveals facts about the mishandling of ballots from ballot printers to their transportation on a truck with none of the required documentation completed to the co-mingling of counted ballots with uncounted ballots. And undelivered ballots? Between the Post Office and the County election office, they are …. somewhere? In addition to her key work and analysis in Arizona, Heather also won a recent public access request court case in her native Pennsylvania after first being denied by her local election office and the Secretary of State who blocked the public release of the state’s very public voting records.

In October 2021, Cleta sat down with Mollie Hemingway of The Federalist and discussed her amazing book released in May 2021 about the 2020 election, Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections It is worth watching and listening again to Mollie, to realize how completely accurate she was in describing how America’s powerful elites destabilized and compromised both the 2020 election process and its results. And now we know that it wasn’t just Big Tech and Big Media - it turns out that the federal government itself was engaged in the suppression of information vital to guaranteeing an informed electorate, as Twitter, Facebook, and Google suppressed (at government requests) important news and facts about everything from the pandemic to the Biden family’s international business dealings. How has the media’s move from bias to outright propaganda allowed the left to ignore or manipulate election laws with impunity, to the point where the majority of voters have little or no confidence in election outcomes? Where is the intersection between leftwing media companies and skewed election results? How do we stop private entities from interfering in election offices to achieve partisan results? How widespread is the left’s reach into compromising elections? We revisit 2020 with Mollie in light of the facts we now know as 2022 comes to an end. And we are reminded by this episode of the Who’s Counting? podcast that Mollie Hemingway is perhaps the most insightful, thoughtful, and prescient public intellectual of our time.

This interview is part of EIN’s “After and Before" Who's Counting With Cleta Mitchell Podcast series outlining the positive difference an election integrity infrastructure has in states with active local and state election integrity task forces. After a career spanning 20 years of service in the U.S. Army, West Point graduate Jim Womack entered the private sector as an IT professional as well as becoming a county commissioner and being active in local party politics. These experiences combined to give him the expertise to create a North Carolina fair election organization – the North Carolina Election Integrity Team, called “NCEIT”. Inspired by what he learned at EIN’s first national election integrity leaders’ summit in January of 2022, Jim returned to North Carolina, created NCEIT, collected a team of experts, and spearheaded a statewide election integrity network already making an impact on the election system in his state. Cleta and Jim discuss the importance of applying proven business practices to “the business of election integrity.” Jim’s EI business model is organized into EI issues or “lanes” that are then delineated into tasks and assigned to specific task force members with relevant interest or expertise. NCEIT has also prioritized these EI lanes, and made great strides in becoming deeply involved with voter rolls and list maintenance, voting machine accuracy, creating relationships with election boards and other pertinent issues. Jim and has team have uncovered some critical problems in NC statutes, state election board procedures, and in standard election practices that must be addressed by policymakers and legislators. The work that NCEIT is doing is also helping to inform task forces and election integrity advocates in other states. Be encouraged! Be engaged!

This interview is part of EIN’s “After and Before" Series. After 2020 and 2022, and Before 2024: Who's Counting? with Cleta Mitchell Podcasts discussing state-by-state experiences in 2022 from the Election Integrity Network’s citizen leaders: The bad…but also the good – and the positive difference an election integrity infrastructure made and is making in state after state. Whatever do purple pens and knitting patterns have to do with election integrity efforts? Cleta’s guest Elizabeth Butler, leader of the Broward County, Florida, Election Integrity Task Force describes a few notable red flags she has discovered both as an election integrity activist in Virginia, and now in Florida. Elizabeth has a background in engineering and management, that she believes has trained her to identify patterns and knit them together to reveal persistent problems – a key skill in her work as an election integrity leader. Elizabeth started her election integrity work in Virginia in 2015 as a volunteer poll observer, then formed the Richmond, VA election integrity task force in 2021 and became a key leader in Virginia’s Fair Elections Coalition, before moving to Broward County, Florida in 2022. Because of her unique perspective as an election integrity leader in two states, Elizabeth has become one of the most knowledgeable leaders in the country on election processes. Having been involved in election integrity operations in two states with two very different sets of laws and procedures, Elizabeth has learned – and taught others – key principles required to protect the integrity of the election systems, regardless of location. With a particular knowledge about election processes, ballot harvesting and the problems of verifying identity of voters who vote by mail, Elizabeth has not just made a difference in her county in a short period of time, but has lent her expertise to the statewide Florida Fair Elections Coalition originally launched by Election Integrity Network. Elizabeth has also served as an instructor at several of EIN’s statewide Election Integrity Summits. Elizabeth describes noticing a stack of vote by mail ballots in Broward County marked with the same purple pen and indicating the same political choices – and blank boxes – which clearly raised questions of the authenticity of the ballots. Elizabeth and Cleta discuss the challenges of keeping such ballots from being included in the count, and some specific and strategic ways to identify and solve problems in the election system. Elizabeth Butler is making a real difference in helping her fellow citizens develop expertise in election procedures, and the confidence to speak up and point out the issues that plague every election system – and to help restore integrity in the election process. Elizabeth is a role model for citizen involvement in the election process. Be encouraged! And be engaged!

“A Catastrophic Voter Suppression Tsunami on November 8 in Maricopa County, AZ” From the moment polls opened at the large voting centers in Maricopa County on November 8, 2022, until they finally closed that evening, there was nothing resembling a normal election day process in literally half of the voting centers: massive voting equipment failure, mismanagement, and misinformation from county officials….resulting in thousands, if not tens of thousands, of voters who, for myriad reasons, may well have been denied their right to vote, Gina Swoboda, President of the Voter Reference Foundation and state leader of the AZ Election Integrity Coalition, was a guest last week on RightSide, the organization’s podcast. Gina describes the system for voting in Maricopa County, the steady deterioration of election administration, management, and reliability in that County over that past several election cycles, and the gory details of what happened on November 8. The outpouring of citizen reports, narratives, and sharing / documenting of personal experiences as voters, election workers, poll observers, and volunteer attorneys reveal a day of chaos where those in charge continued to misinform and mislead the public, the voters, election workers at the polls, and the media as to what was happening. Those officials claimed that problems had been ‘fixed’ when they weren’t. They gave multiple sets of instructions that caused even more problems and that contradicted established procedures, and through it all, presided over a complete breakdown of order, lawful voting, and the protection of the sacred right to vote guaranteed to every citizen in the country – but which was far from guaranteed in Maricopa County, AZ on November 8. The Election Integrity Network has now published eyewitness reports from members of the AZ Election Integrity Coalition that Gina Swoboda has ably lead for the past year. EIN added these reports to our website at www.whoscounting.us, in order that these citizen observers’ and election workers’ voices would be heard. The problems of Maricopa County are shocking. Watch / listen to Gina Swoboda and read the stories of the people who were there. Share this episode of RightSide and send the link to he Maricopa County reports at the EIN website: www.whoscounting.us/maricopa Let’s not allow these voices and their truths to be discarded. Don’t let the ‘observer deniers’ refusal to read, listen and learn be the final word about Maricopa County’s lawsless 2022 general election. The truth is here. Amplify it. Help tell the story that Gina Swoboda shares in this podcast. Support our fellow Americans in Maricopa County who have been so mistreated by those entrusted with running their elections and who completely failed to uphold their responsibilities to protect every citizen’s right to vote. That simply didn’t happen in Maricopa County in 2022. Again. First aired on November 18, 2022 and Shared by permission from RightSide, a podcast of the Voter Reference Foundation https://www.restorationofamerica.com/first-right/

This interview is part of EIN’s “After and Before" Series. After 2020 and 2022, and Before 2024: Who's Counting with Cleta Mitchell Podcasts discussing state-by-state experiences in 2022 from the Election Integrity Network’s citizen leaders: The bad…but also the good – and the positive difference an election integrity infrastructure made and is making in state after state. After attending the Michigan statewide Election Integrity Summit in May, Patrice Johnson of Pure Integrity for Michigan Elections – went on to create the Michigan Fair Elections Coalition. On its first weekly coalition call, twenty-four participants joined Patrice and that number is currently at eighty and growing as the Coalition continues to add new members every day and now has monthly in-person meetings. All the news out of Michigan is not good for election integrity. The legislature flipped to blue, and the Democrat Governor, Secretary of State, and Attorney General – all of whom have opposed election integrity and individual liberty at every turn – were reelected. The state also passed a proposition that significantly weakens ballot protections – via a constitutional amendment whose proponents lied to the voters Amazingly, however, as Patrice notes, these results have not discouraged citizen activists in her coalition, but have actually “fired them up” to work even harder, even if that means a litigation rather than legislation strategy. The coalition is already suing the state to remove Michigan from the corrupt, leftwing controlled Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC) that layers a level of opacity over a system that should be transparent and does nothing to clean voter rolls. Cleta and Patrice also discuss an emerging leftwing practice of using tax dollars to fund leftist influenced voter registration and turnout on college campuses in Michigan and nationwide. Despite the political outcomes in the state, Patrice shares good news and experiences that prove the importance and effectiveness of citizen engagement. Patrice is confident that the volunteers in PIME and the Michigan Fair Elections Coalition will continue to make a difference in fighting for truth and fairness of Michigan elections. Be encouraged – and be engaged!

This interview is part of EIN’s “After and Before" Series. After 2020 and 2022, and Before 2024: Who's Counting With Cleta Mitchell Podcasts discussing state-by-state experiences in 2022 from the Election Integrity Network’s citizen leaders: The bad…but also the good – and the positive difference an election integrity infrastructure made and is making in state after state. Just after election 2022, Cleta Mitchell sat down with Lynn Taylor, president of the Virginia Institute for Public Policy and chair of the Virginia Fair Elections Coalition (vafairelections.org) to identify the proven impact election integrity coalitions have had in the Commonwealth. Lynn provides specific examples of the positive effect the local task forces and the state coalition have demonstrated against the backdrop of Virginia's weak election laws. The goal of the Election Integrity movement according to Lynn Taylor? “Election integrity is not about a particular race, or a political party or political outcome, but striving toward free, fair and transparent elections that provide ALL voters with confidence in results”. What started out as a small cadre of concerned citizens in 2021 who knew "something is just not right" with their voting procedures has grown into a robust statewide coalition of active and well-trained election integrity advocates and poll observers. A key role is to understand election procedure law, make sure it is followed, and in some cases, even assist election officials to better understand statutory rules. Virginia's election integrity advocates who came into the coalition in 2021 remain a vital part of the effort, with more patriot heroes being added every week – and determined to stay and to build the network for future elections. THEY are the ones who continue to make it stronger. They are determined to continue to work to change the bad election system in Virginia until integrity is baked into the election code permanently. At Election Integrity Network, we tell everyone: only YOU can help save America’s election process. Be encouraged – and be engaged!

The election integrity movement has been attacked by the left wing propaganda press and even the President of the United States, and its members openly threatened and intimidated. Why? Because, as EIN Chairman Cleta Mitchell notes in this post-election podcast, with the engagement of citizen patriots, our movement has made major strides in protecting the “consent of the governed” – the foundation of our constitutional republic. In one short year, EIN has moved to protect ballots and lawful voters with: ten election integrity summits nationwide to train and provide resources to the election integrity movement; release of our downloadable Citizens Guide to Building a Permanent Infrastructure; creation of online Election Integrity Master Classes covering all aspects of election integrity; Cleta’s informative series of Who’s Counting podcasts with election integrity experts; and utilizing the “Virginia Model” to foster and host a nationwide state election integrity leaders call, more than two dozen state-based task forces and countless local task forces. These resources allow our grassroots partners and poll watchers to learn how to accurately and lawfully observe, document and report any activity in voting that does not comport with state law. With specific examples from a number of states, Cleta explains the history of left wing infiltration that led to the weakening of voter protections, and discusses specific strategies and steps EIN will be taking in the next two years to reverse bad law and promote strong protections. We will address our system’s greatest weaknesses including Vote By Mail (a methodology proven impossible for election officials to verify voter identification,) promoting laws that ensure the number of voters equals the number of ballots cast equals the number of votes counted, that the acceptance of ballots ends at 7 PM on election day, and enforcing laws that require political parity as poll observation is specifically designed so that each party watches the other. EIN will also continue to support litigation that protects voters and enforces law and any other policy and legislative fixes that provide transparency, accuracy, fairness and accountability in every corner of election law and procedure. Another goal is to ensure that statewide election integrity task forces are up and running in every state. We hope you will join us on this election integrity journey, share our resources with others, and become a partner with us and thousands of “regular folks” around the country concerned with the security and fairness of our elections.