Several high-ranking federal election officials
attended a summit last week at which prominent figures who worked to
🔥overturn Donald Trump’s loss in the 2020 election
pressed the president to
👉 declare a national emergency to take over this year’s midterms.

According to videos, photos and social media posts reviewed by ProPublica,
the meeting’s participants included #Kurt #Olsen, a White House lawyer charged with reinvestigating the 2020 election,
and #Heather #Honey, the Department of Homeland Security official in charge of election integrity.

The event was convened by #Michael #Flynn, Trump’s former national security adviser,
and attended by #Cleta #Mitchell,
who directs the "Election Integrity Network",
a group that has spread false claims about election fraud and noncitizen voting. 

Election experts say that the meeting reflects an intensifying push to
persuade Trump to take unprecedented actions to affect the vote in November.

Courts have largely blocked his efforts to reshape elections through an executive order,
and legislation has stalled in Congress that would mandate strict voter ID requirements across the country.

The Washington Post reported Thursday that activists associated with those at the summit have been circulating a draft of an executive order
that would ❌ban mail-in ballots
and ❌get rid of voting machines
as part of a federal takeover.

#Peter #Ticktin, a lawyer who worked on the executive order and had a client at the summit,
told ProPublica these actions were
“all part of the same effort.” 

The summit followed other meetings and discussions between administration officials and activists
— many not previously reported
— stretching back to at least last fall,
according to emails and recordings obtained by ProPublica.

The coordination between those inside and outside the government represents a breakdown of crucial guardrails,
experts on U.S. elections said.

“The meeting shows that the same people who tried to overturn the 2020 election
have only grown better organized
and are now embedded in the machinery of government,”
said Brendan Fischer,
a director at the "Campaign Legal Center",
a nonpartisan pro-democracy organization.

“This creates substantial risk that the administration is laying the groundwork to improperly reshape elections ahead of the midterms
or even go against the will of the voters.”

https://www.propublica.org/article/election-denier-summit-trump-midterms

Democracy experts believe there is no longer any doubt about Trump’s desire to interfere with this fall’s elections.

“We should not be waiting for the next shoe to drop,”
said Wendy Weiser, vice-president for democracy at the Brennan Center for Justice.
🆘“There is a full-blown effort to seize control of some of the mechanisms of our elections and to lay the foundation for interfering in upcoming elections.”

The president has no power over federal elections,
and the US constitution is not ambiguous on the matter.
Article I, section 4 of the document gives states the power to run elections.
Congress, the constitution says, can pass nationwide rules for federal elections.

Nonetheless, Trump and his allies have suggested the president may still be able to wield some kind of emergency power to take control of the electoral process.
“The president’s authority is limited in his role with regard to elections except where there is a threat to the national sovereignty of the United States
– as I think that we can establish with the porous system that we have,”
#Cleta #Mitchell, a conservative lawyer and Trump ally said on a podcast interview last year.
⚠️“Then, I think maybe the president is thinking he will exercise some emergency powers to protect the federal elections going forward.”

Declaring a national emergency unlocks about 150 statutory powers for the president, including things like shutting down radio stations, suspending certain military regulations, and to sanction foreign countries.

But none of those powers “even come close to giving the president any authority over elections”, Weiser said.
“The president has zero emergency powers over elections.”

The concern about the president using emergency powers has only been amplified by the presence of #Tulsi #Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, at the Fulton county raid.
Gabbard, whose presence as an intelligence official on a domestic matter has caused widespread outrage, is said to be investigating voting equipment and foreign interference.

Among others, Gabbard is briefing Mitchell and #Kurt #Olsen, another lawyer who was involved in Trump’s effort to overturn the election, on her investigation, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Mitchell declined to comment on those briefings, but said she understood Trump’s comments to be more about the need to change federal voting laws.
“All of the election statutes need significant revision, updating, and reform. And many of us are working on that,” Mitchell said in an email. “Clearly there are far too many election officials nationwide who treat the law as optional suggestions. And have instituted procedures that are contrary to law. That happened in spades in 2020 and is all too common every election. Sloppy, poor administration and intentional disregard of basic statutory requirements. We see it everywhere.”

There is no evidence of widespread fraud in 2020 or in any other election.

The White House press secretary, #Karoline #Leavitt, has framed Trump’s comments similarly.
Trump subsequently undercut those efforts to downplay his comments,
criticizing Democratic cities such as Philadelphia, Detroit and Atlanta, saying:
🔥“If they can’t count the votes legally and honestly, then somebody else should take over.”

Beyond unspecified actions to take control of state election processes, there are other pathways for Trump to try to interfere in the election process.
#Steve #Bannon, the influential conservative personality and former Trump strategist, has called for Trump to deploy ICE agents at the polls.
Such an effort would violate a federal law that prohibits federal troops from being at the polls “unless such force be necessary to repel armed enemies of the United States”.
❌“We’re going to have ICE surround the polls come November.
We’re not going to sit here and allow you to steal the country again,”
Bannon said on his podcast on Tuesday.
“And you can whine and cry and throw your toys out of the pram all you want, but we will never again allow an election to be stolen.”

The Trump administration has already shown its willingness to use emergency powers to try to expand the president’s authority.
Last spring, the Trump administration invoked the
💥"Alien Enemies Act",
an 18th-century law that allows the government to deport immigrants without full due process.

The United States, the government argued, was subject to an invasion by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.
Federal judges have since blockedthat order and expressed skepticism it is a legitimate invasion.
Trump has also claimed he has emergency powers to impose tariffs, though the supreme court appears poised to reject that argument.

Part of the reason Trump is talking about nationalizing elections now may be to try to get the public to accept an idea that is obviously illegal.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/07/trump-interference-voting-midterms?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

Mrs. Cleta Pearl Alisky [no date recorded on caption card]
Bain News Service
1 negative : glass ; 5 x 7 in. or smaller.

#Portrait #Photograph #Vintage #Studio #Woman #MrsCletaPearlAlisky #EarlythCentury #StudioPortrait #FormalWear #glassnegatives #news #photography #Alisky #Cleta #CletaPearlAlisky
https://www.loc.gov/item/2014686326/

For a case study in how conservative political operatives have weaponized voter suppression to their electoral advantage, take the "Election Integrity Network", or EIN.

EIN is an arm of the State Policy Network and the Conservative Partnership Institute, or CPI,
which claims to want to “make it harder to cheat” at the ballot box.

In reality, EIN is an organized network of voter suppression activists and conspiracy theorists who seek to surgically, meticulously, and cunningly dismantle the electoral process.

Led by former Trump lawyer and vocal election conspiracy theorist #Cleta #Mitchell, the EIN recruits activists at the state level and trains them to target the registrations of potentially left-leaning voters in an effort to tilt the balance of the electorate toward conservative-leaning voters.  

If Mitchell isn’t exactly a household name, that’s because her network conducts most of its activities behind the scenes, unlike its CPI contemporaries such as the "Center for Renewing America" and "America First Legal".

To accomplish its mission, EIN relies on claims of widespread voter fraud, a phantasmal canard that has been roundly debunked.

While there are some federal policies that EIN opposes, such as the popular pro-democracy For the People Act,
it focuses its work on the state level, collaborating with friendly state legislators, conducting robust opposition research, and coordinating messaging campaigns to undermine public trust in the integrity of elections. 

EIN has chapters across the country that are working tirelessly to alter Americans’ perception of the vote.

The group aims to convince the public that elections are not secure (they are),
that there is widespread voter fraud (there is not),
and that only certain groups of people should vote.

What’s most terrifying is that they are finding some success...
https://newrepublic.com/article/187181/cleta-mitchell-voter-suppression-2024?utm_source=flipboard&utm_content=thenewrepublic/magazine/The+New+Republic

Right-Wing Activists Pushed False Claims About Election Fraud.

-- Now They’re Recruiting Poll Workers in Swing States.

The Republican and Democratic parties have historically recruited poll workers,
and almost every state legally requires some amount of partisan balance.

Ahead of 2024, Republicans have accused officials in five Michigan and Wisconsin cities of unfairly overlooking their nominees and overstaffing polling places with Democrats.

The challenges in Flint, Michigan, and Madison, Wisconsin, were dismissed (one by a court, the other by the Wisconsin Elections Commission),
and Republican applicants in some places have since filed the required paperwork and signed up; other challenges are ongoing.

⚠️What’s newer is groups outside the parties making concerted efforts to recruit poll workers themselves.

The Election Integrity Network, founded by #Cleta #Mitchell, a former lawyer for ex-President Donald Trump, began enlisting poll workers during the 2022 midterms.

Now, more groups have joined it.

💥These include True the Vote, whose claims formed the basis of the widely debunked and eventually retracted film “2000 Mules,” which claimed to show election fraud,

💥and The Lion of Judah, a group aspiring to be the “Christian version of the NRA” that is traveling to swing states with #Lance #Wallnau to recruit conservative Christian poll workers.

Late last month, Trump’s vice presidential nominee, JD #Vance, lent Wallnau’s efforts credibility by appearing at a tour stop in Pennsylvania.

It is unknown how many poll workers these groups have recruited, in part because they aren’t saying and in part because election offices don’t ask people about their motivation.

https://www.propublica.org/article/poll-worker-recruitment-swing-states-true-the-vote-lion-of-judah

Georgia’s GOP-controlled #State #Election #Board is poised to adopt a rule on Monday that would give county election board members
💥 an additional avenue to delay certification of election results, 💥potentially allowing them to throw the state’s vote count into chaos this fall.

A former Fulton County election official who submitted an initial draft of the rule told ProPublica that she had done so at the behest of a regional leader of a right-wing organization involved in challenging the legitimacy of American election systems. That organization, the 💥"Election Integrity Network", is led by #Cleta #Mitchell, 💥who helped orchestrate attempts to overturn the 2020 election
and spoke on the call in which former President Donald Trump demanded that Georgia’s secretary of state “find” him 11,780 votes to undo Joe Biden’s victory.

The Election Integrity Network’s role in bringing forward the proposed rule has not been previously reported.

The State Election Board’s Monday meeting comes on the heels of a vote less than two weeks before that empowered county election board members to conduct “reasonable inquiry” into allegations of voting irregularities.

That rule did not set deadlines for how long such inquiries might last or describe what they might entail,
and critics worried that this omission could cause Georgia to miss the Dec. 11 deadline for sending its certified presidential election results to the federal government.

https://www.propublica.org/article/georgia-election-board-vote-certification

'Disrupt the process':

Trump's Jan. 6-inspired plan to undermine election revealed

Donald Trump reportedly has a plan to undermine and challenge the 2024 presidential election,

and it involves many of the same people who participated in the Jan. 6 insurrection attempt.

The New York Times reported on the plans on Saturday, even noting that the group spearheading #Project2025, the 🔸Heritage Foundation🔸, is providing support for the GOP's efforts.

💥The Republican Party and its conservative allies are engaged in an unprecedented legal campaign targeting the American voting system. 💥

Their wide-ranging and methodical effort is laying the groundwork to contest an election that they argue,
falsely, is already being rigged against former President Donald J. Trump," the Times reported over the weekend.

"The campaign involves a powerful network of Republican lawyers and activist groups,
working loosely in concert with the Republican National Committee.

Many of the key players were active in Mr. Trump’s attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election."

The report suggests that, "unlike the chaotic and improvised challenge four years ago, the new drive includes a systematic search for any vulnerability in the nation’s patchwork election system."

"Mr. Trump’s allies have followed a two-pronged approach:
restricting voting for partisan advantage ahead of Election Day
and short-circuiting the process of ratifying the winner afterward, if Mr. Trump loses,"

it states. " The latter strategy involves an ambitious
— and legally dubious
— attempt to reimagine decades of settled law dictating how results are officially certified in the weeks before the transfer of power."

The report goes on to state that "Democrats, civil rights lawyers and even some Republicans say that the threat is clear:
Even if the cases fail, Mr. Trump’s allies are building excuses to dispute the results, while trying to empower thousands of local election officials to disrupt the process."
"Already, election board members in several states have moved to block certification of primary election tallies, including in a major swing county in Nevada last week," according to the report.

"#Cleta #Mitchell, a Republican lawyer who was part of Mr. Trump’s push to overturn his loss in Georgia now runs the
🔸"Election Integrity Network", 🔸
a group that is advising activists on how to challenge voters’ eligibility.
The 🔸Heritage Foundation🔸 has provided institutional support and planning.
Last month, the group war-gamed exercises exploring scenarios in a disputed election."

https://www.rawstory.com/trump-2024-plan-to-disrupt-the-process/

The Conservative Partnership Institute,
a nonprofit whose funding skyrocketed after it became a nerve center for President Donald J. Trump’s allies in Washington,
has paid at least $3.2 million since the start of 2021 to corporations led by its own leaders or their relatives, records show.

In its most recent tax filings, the nonprofit’s three highest-paid contractors were all connected to insiders.

One was led by the institute’s president, #Edward #Corrigan,
and another by its chief operating officer.
At a third contractor, the board members included the group’s senior legal fellow #Cleta #Mitchell, a lawyer who supported Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The Conservative Partnership Institute applied to the Internal Revenue Service as a tax-exempt nonprofit, and the agency approved.
That means donations to the group are tax deductible, like gifts to a food bank or the American Red Cross.
It also means that, 🔸by law, its money must serve the public good rather than private interests.🔸
The nonprofit has pushed those limits by entwining itself with only one faction of American politics.
It pays high salaries to some of Mr. Trump’s former officials, hosts retreats for Republican lawmakers at a rural compound and funds efforts to vet people and ideas for a second Trump term.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/06/us/politics/trump-conservative-partnership-institute-funds.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare