In the hotel where Abraham Lincoln kicked off his Civil War presidency, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. refined his most famous speech, dozens of organizations gathered this week with a common goal: to forge a historic coalition that would catapult conservatives to the forefront of early voting and election lawfare and expand their movement to Hispanics, Asians, union workers, and African-Americans fleeing the Democratic Party.
Read the full storyTag: voting
Commentary: Biden’s Border Blowup
Some 8 to 10 million illegal aliens from all over the world, as expected, have flooded across the border since Joe Biden took office.
A demagogic candidate Biden, remember, in 2019 invited those massing at the southern border to “surge” into the United States without specifying they first needed legal sanction: “We immediately surge to the border all those seeking asylum.”
Read the full story‘Make Voting Great Again’: GOP Warns Against Government Election Meddling
The Biden administration appears poised to put the government’s thumb on the scale in the 2024 election, House Republicans say.
The administration’s lack of transparency about implementing President Joe Biden’s executive order for federal agencies to help get out the vote—combined with a warning from Attorney General Merrick Garland—has sparked some concern among lawmakers.
Read the full storyRachel Alexander: ‘Zero Percent Chance’ Any Legal Challenge Would Change Law Permitting Noncitizens to Vote in Federal Elections by November
Rachel Alexander, lead reporter at The Arizona Sun Times, said there is a “zero percent chance” anything could happen legally between now and November to change federal law allowing no proof of citizenship to be submitted in order for an individual to be eligible to vote in a federal election.
“These 10 million invaders that have come here into the United States under the Biden administration, they’re going to try to get them to vote,” host Michael Leahy said to Alexander on Tuesday’s episode of The Michael Patrick Leahy Show. “Are there other things that we can do to prevent illegal aliens from voting in the federal election in November 2024?”
Read the full storyRanked-Choice Voting Proves to Be Lightning Rod Issue in Several States
Bills to ban ranked-choice voting are causing passionate debate over a method to cast ballots that some say is fairer and some say is confusing and could lower voter turnout.
Ranked-choice voting allows people to rank the candidates, with “one” being their favorite. The votes are tallied in rounds. After the first round, the candidate with the lowest votes is eliminated. The voter’s second preference is then added to the tally. The process continues until a winner is determined.
Read the full storyMichigan GOP Faces Division During Presidential Primary
Days before Tuesday’s primary election, more than 700,000 Michiganders have already cast a ballot thanks to new voting laws.
More than 18,000 votes were cast in the first three days of in-person early voting statewide over the holiday weekend.
Read the full storyTop Two Presidential Candidates, Relatives Facing Legal Woes as 2024 Voting Starts
The top two 2024 presidential candidates are running with lawsuits looming over them, as former President Donald Trump has multiple trials he faces this year while President Joe Biden’s son is having his own legal troubles.
On Thursday, both Trump and Hunter Biden were in court at opposite ends of the country, with the former president in New York and the first son in Los Angeles. Trump’s trial is a civil case brought by the state attorney general regarding alleged business fraud while Hunter Biden was in court for alleged tax fraud.
Read the full storyOhio Republican Party Urges Voters to Bank Their Vote Ahead of Primary Election
The Ohio Republican Party is urging GOP voters in the Buckeye State to participate in the Republican National Committee’s (RNC) new nationwide campaign focused on maximizing pre-Election Day voting.
The RNC’s Bank Your Vote campaign was created last year to “encourage, educate, and activate Republican voters on when, where, and how to lock in their votes as early as possible, through in-person early voting, absentee voting, and ballot harvesting where legal.”
Read the full storyFederal Court in Georgia Hands Down Major Win for Election Integrity Group
True the Vote, a nonpartisan voters’ rights and election integrity organization, declared a “decisive triumph” in its legal battle against Fair Fight Action, a voting rights group founded by Democrat Stacy Abrams.
Read the full storyGeorgia Moves to Block Noncitizen Voting in State Constitution
Georgia’s top election official is pointing to the Biden administration’s failure to secure the southern border as a reason the state Legislature must act to prevent voting by foreign nationals in state elections.
“With open borders, citizenship verification for voter registration is more important than ever,” Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, said Monday in a public statement.
Read the full storyCommentary: Mitt Romney and Joe Manchin Are Wrong About Ranked-Choice Voting
U.S. Sens. Joe Manchin and Mitt Romney recently praised Ranked-Choice Voting (RCV), lauding it respectively as “mesmerizing…we should do it” and “a superior way to proceed.” But the two lawmakers are wrong.
Their statements might ring true if they understood they are endorsing a system that encourages fringe candidates and skews election outcomes.
Read the full storyVoting Changes Rejected; Moving Pennsylvania Presidential Primary Still Possible
The state House has overwhelmingly rejected a joint proposal to move the primary election date and implement sweeping voting changes that frustrated lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
The chamber struck down Senate Bill 224 by a vote of 177-26. In total, all 101 Republicans and 76 Democrats, including House Speaker Joanna McClinton of Philadelphia, disapproved.
Read the full storyCourt Rules Wisconsin Elections Commission Illegally Used Voter Registration Form
The Wisconsin Elections Commission has lost a lawsuit challenging its use of an unlawful voter registration form, the latest legal problem for a controversial state elections regulator with a history of bending the law.
The lawsuit, filed by the Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty (WILL) on behalf of Wisconsin taxpayer and voter Richard Braun, challenged the use of the National Mail Voter Registration Form in Wisconsin.
Read the full storyNew Republican Voter Registrations Continue to Outpace Democrats by over Three Times as Much in Maricopa County
Recent voter registration numbers from the Arizona Secretary of State’s Office show an increasing number of voters in Maricopa County registering as Republican rather than Democrat. Between last fall’s election and April, Republican voter registration in the county increased by 9,905 to 851,047. Democratic voter registration increased by only 2,791, less than a third as much. Republicans maintained their registration advantage at 34.39 percent, while Democrats dipped below 30 percent to 29.69 percent.
Read the full storyReport Finds 8,241-Vote Discrepancy in Arizona’s 2022 Election Between Number of Individuals Who Voted and Ballots Counted
A report from the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) found that there may be an 8,241-vote discrepancy between those who cast votes in Maricopa County’s 2022 election and the number of ballots that were counted. This is “about 29.4 times” the difference between the contested attorney general’s race, the report stated, which Democrat Kris Mayes won by 280 votes.
On Friday, Mohave County Judge Lee F. Jantzen denied Abe Hamadeh’s request for a new hearing in his election challenge.
Read the full storyCrom’s Crommentary: The Democrat Party Is Using Angst to Give Itself More Power
Wednesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Michael Patrick Leahy welcomed the original all-star panelist Crom Carmichael to the studio for another edition of Crom’s Crommentary.
Read the full storyIowa and Ohio Latest States Set to Depart Controversial Voting Data Partnership
Iowa and Ohio are the latest states looking to leave the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), the controversial interstate voting data partnership.
Already seen as suspect by conservatives questioning ERIC’s left-leaning ties, the organization has been inflexible to changes called for by Ohio and other Republican-led states.
Read the full storyWilson County Man Sentenced After Pleading Guilty to Voter Registration Fraud Charges
In criminal court on Monday, a Lebanon man admitted to committing voter registration fraud, according to WSMV 4 Nashville.
Read the full storyWith New Majority, Pennsylvania House Democrats Prioritize Abortion and Stopping Voter ID
Pennsylvania Democrats in the House of Representatives are seizing their new majority in the state House of Representatives — secured this week with three special-election victories — to advance abortion and lose voting security.
Pennsylvania Democratic Party Chairman Sharif Street, who represents part of Philadelphia in the state Senate, issued a statement congratulating Joe McAndrew, Abigail Salisbury and Matt Gergely, all of whom won Allegheny County-based House seats. The chair said he looks forward to the work he believes House leadership wants to do to keep abortion widely available and ensure Pennsylvanians need not submit identification to vote at the polls.
Read the full storyDACA Recipient to Minnesota Lawmakers: ‘We Are Voting’
A DACA recipient had this to say to Minnesota lawmakers last week: “We are voting.”
“We are voting. Our people are voting. If you don’t pass this bill, people are going to vote you all out,” Angelico Bello, who said she is a DACA recipient, told the House Transportation Committee Jan. 10.
Read the full storyMaricopa County Voting Centers Plagued with Tabulation Errors on Election Day Affected Areas Averaging Well Over 300 Percent More Republicans Than Democrats
Voters encountered problems casting their ballots at 70 of the 223 vote centers in Maricopa County on Election Day, November 8, 2022, resulting in long lines and concerns that ballots ended up not tabulated or “misread,” and commingled with ballots that had already been tabulated. Averaged together, the problems occurred in areas where Election Day voting was more than 300 percent Republican versus Democrat. Of those 70 precincts affected, 59 were in heavily Republican-voting areas, and two were Republican-leaning but not heavily, with only nine from Democrat-leaning or solidly Democrat areas.
Read the full storyCalls Emerge for Maricopa County Officials to Resign or Be Recalled After Election Problems
Activists are calling for resignations and recalls as Arizonans – along with the nation – await Maricopa County election officials’ announcements of the definitive results from Tuesday’s 2022 general election.
The state’s most populous county said that 30 percent of voting machine tabulation problems, causing lines of up to two hours in places. Maricopa County Member-at-Large Brian Ference says wants Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer and Bill Gates, chair of the Maricopa County Supervisors, to resign. Robert Canterbury, who unsuccessfully ran against Maricopa County Supervisor Clint Hickman in 2020, is considering starting a recall against Gates, prompting State Republican Party Chair Kelli Ward to respond, “Let me know how I can help.”
Read the full storySeveral Tennessee School Districts Closed to Students on Election Day
According to the school district’s calendar, Memphis-Shelby County schools will be closed on Election Day, Tuesday, November 8.
Thirteen of the schools in the district will be used as polling places for registered voters to cast their ballots.
Read the full storyOhio Officials Hope to Recruit Younger Poll Workers
With the upcoming Midterm election on November 8th, Ohio election officials want young people to register to vote, but they also need them to come and be trained to be poll workers.
According to the Pew Research Center, older people are the primary individuals serving as volunteer poll workers in U.S. elections.
Read the full storyOhio Secretary of State Warns Voters: Absentee Ballots Cannot Be Returned to Precincts
Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose cautions voters that Ohio law does not allow them to return their absentee ballots to their precincts on Election day.
Those who elect to hold onto their paper ballots until November 8th must deliver them to their county board of elections office. According to LaRose, poll workers at precinct-level voting locations cannot accept them.
Read the full storyTea Party Express Endorses Andy Ogles for Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District
The nation’s largest grassroots Tea Party political action committee, Tea Party Express, endorsed Republican candidate Andy Ogles for Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District on Thursday.
Read the full storyAdditional Security Protocols Put into Place as Thousands of Ohioans Request Absentee Ballots
As early voting began on Wednesday for the 2022 General Election, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose enumerated an increase in absentee ballot applications to date from prior years and assured Ohioans that security checks are in place to make absentee voting secure against fraud.
According to LaRose, the applications for absentee ballots so far reflect a 4.4 percent increase over the gubernatorial statewide election in 2018. So far Ohioans have requested 812,200 absentee ballots, including 4,938 requests from military and overseas voters whose ballots began to be mailed last month.
Read the full storyCommentary: The Evidence Is Real — Dead People Are Voting
The 2020 election was full of chaos and irregularities. States like Georgia and Pennsylvania took days to finalize election results. Mail ballots were found on floors of apartment floor lobbies. Dead people were even voting in states across the country!
Unfortunately, people have been voting from beyond the grave since well before 2020.
Read the full storyEarly General Election Voting Starts in Ohio Next Month
Ohioans will be going to the polls for early voting beginning in October.
Starting on October 12th, Ohio residents who are registered to vote can either physically go to the polls or can participate through absentee voting by mail.
Read the full storyEarly Voting for November Election Begins in Virginia
With Congressional elections about a month and a half away, Virginians who want to cast their ballots early can begin doing so.
Registered voters can cast their early ballots in person at the general registrar’s office for the jurisdiction in which they are registered, according to a news release from the Virginia Department of Elections. Some jurisdictions also offer satellite locations for early voting in addition to offering them at the general registrar’s office.
Read the full storyNFIB Tennessee PAC Endorses Governor Lee for Re-Election
The NFIB Tennessee PAC, composed solely of NFIB members across the state, has endorsed Governor Bill Lee for re-election.
Read the full storyHouse Republicans Blast Biden for Colluding with Left-Wing Groups on Voting Executive Order
Four House Republicans sent a letter Friday to White House Domestic Policy Director Susan Rice and Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young accusing the Biden White House of colluding with progressive voting rights groups and attempting to “usurp state power to nationalize elections and commandeer the voting process to Democrats’ political advantage.”
Read the full storyOhio Precinct Strategy to Hold Event to Encourage Participation
Ohio Precinct Strategy, a group that supports individuals to become involved at the local level, will hold an event to inform residents of the state on ways to participate.
The event will take place on Saturday, June 18, for the majority of the day and be located at Tom’s Country Place in Avon.
Read the full storyMoms for America Launch MomVote Initiative During Press Conference in Nashville
Moms for America launched its new initiative, MomVote, during a press conference in Nashville Saturday. The group’s newest initiative “empowers moms around the country to find voter information quickly and easily.”
Moms for America, founded in 2004, is a nonprofit educational corporation with a mission to “empower moms to raise patriots and promote liberty for the healing of America.”
Read the full storyMaury County Mayoral Candidate David Baker: ‘God Had Other Plans’ for Pastoring and Politics
Tuesday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed Maury County Mayoral Candidate David Baker about his background and separation of church and state.
Read the full storyMaricopa County Attorney to Resign amid Controversy
The lead lawyer for the third-largest prosecutorial body in the U.S. will resign at the end of the week, her office announced Monday.
Maricopa County Attorney Allister Adel said her last day in office would be Friday.
“I am confident that the important mission of the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office will continue,” she said in a statement, offering no explanation for the resignation.
Read the full storyGeorgia Ballot Harvesting Probe Advances as State Elections Board Approves Subpoena
The Georgia Elections Board has approved a subpoena to secure evidence and testimony in an ongoing investigation into whether third-party liberal activists illegally gathered thousands of absentee ballots in the 2020 general election and a subsequent runoff that determined Democrat control of the U.S. Senate.
The vote was a major win for Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who announced the investigation into alleged ballot harvesting in January and was seeking the subpoena authority to assist the probe.
The subpoena power will allow Raffensperger’s team to secure evidence about a whistleblower who alleged to an election integrity group that he participated in a large operation to gather ballots in which activists were paid $10 for each ballot they delivered.
Read the full storyThe Republican National Committee Registering New Voters at Gas Stations as Prices Surge
The Republican National Committee (RNC) launched a voter registration initiative at gas stations across the country, drawing attention to rising gas prices under President Joe Biden’s leadership.
“We are registering voters across the country who are tired of Biden’s Gas Hike!” the RNC said Monday on Twitter. “Coming to a gas station near you!”
The effort began with a Saturday event in Arizona, according to The Hill. “Arizonans are frustrated with paying the record-high gas prices we’ve seen recently, this is an issue that affects almost every single Arizonan,” said the communications director for Arizona’s RNC, Ben Petersen, according to The Hill.
Read the full storyCommentary: Slimy Liz Cheney All but Begging Wyoming Dems to Help Her Battle Trump
No one ever said that the business of politics made good sense, but if you’re a politician, and the vast majority of your constituents — including a high percentage of those in your own party — no longer want you to represent them, shouldn’t you take their distaste as a hint and get the heck out of office?
Such is the case for notorious Donald Trump bashing RINO congresswoman Liz Cheney. As everyone knows by now, Cheney is the lone House representative from the huge but sparsely populated state of Wyoming, which means hers is the sole voice of every single Cowboy State resident and citizen in the lower chamber. Liz has never had an issue with winning elections in blood red Wyoming, which would seem to be an argument in her favor. But times and circumstances have changed markedly in the rocky mountain high plains and there’re hardly any folks there who hanker to send Cheney back to DC for another two years.
Yet onward Liz trudges. Because Cheney has fallen so far out of favor with conservatives and Republicans in her jurisdiction, she’s now relying on Democrats to try and (literally) save her seat. The optics alone are odd, but reality is even weirder. In a piece titled “Liz Cheney turns to Democrats to save her hide,” Tara Palmeri wrote at Politico:
Read the full storyArizona Senate Study Estimates 200K Ballots Counted in 2020 with Mismatched Signatures
Astudy of Maricopa County’s mail ballots in Arizona’s 2020 presidential election estimates that more than 200,000 ballots with mismatched signatures were counted without being reviewed, or “cured” — more than eight times the 25,000 signature mismatches requiring curing acknowledged by the county.
Commissioned by the Arizona State Senate, the signature verification pilot study was conducted by Shiva Ayyadurai’s Election Systems Integrity Institute, which released its final report to the public on Tuesday. Ayyadurai is an engineer and entrpreneur with four degrees from MIT who bills himself as the inventor of email, a claim which critics have alleged is exaggerated.
Of the 1,911,918 early voting mail ballots that Maricopa County received and counted in the 2020 presidential election, the county reported that 25,000, or 1.3%, had signature mismatches that required curing, but only 587 (2.3%) of those were confirmed mismatched signatures.
Read the full storyFormer President Trump Encourages Local Political Participation by Republicans
Former President Donald Trump on Sunday encouraged Republicans to become involved in politics at the local level – specifically, by becoming a precinct committeeman.
Trump endorsed a movement, entitled the “Precinct Strategy,” to engage Republicans and “America First” supporters.
Read the full storyTwo Key Senate Races Moved in GOP’s Direction by Noted Election Handicapper Cook Political Report
The nonpartisan Cook Political Report on Friday shifted its forecasts for two 2022 Senate races in the direction of Republicans.
The report moved the North Carolina Senate race to replace retiring GOP Sen. Richard Burr moved from “toss-up” to “likely Republican.” And moved the Colorado Senate race, in which Democrat Sen. Michael Bennet is seeking a third term, from “solid Democrat” into the “likely Democrat” catagory.
The North Carolina GOP primary is now a competitive race between former President Trump-endorsed Rep. Ted Budd, former Gov. Pat McCrory and former Rep. Mark Walker, with (with Budd and McCrory currently deadlocked).
Read the full storyInitiative Modeled After Federal HR 1, ‘Arizonans for Free and Fair Elections,’ Seeks to Get on Ballot
A consortium of Left-leaning groups is seeking to add an initiative on the Arizona ballot that is very similar to the federal HR 1. “Arizonans for Free and Fair Elections” rolls back recent election integrity laws passed by the Arizona Legislature, makes it easier for people to vote without proving citizenship, and removes standard election fraud safeguards like requiring registering to vote in advance of elections.
The Arizona Free Enterprise Club called the initiative “a leftist wish list of election law changes.” AFEC contends, “[T]heir federal takeover of elections has been held up in the U.S. Senate for months, so they have moved to ‘Plan B ’— taking over the election process in Arizona.”
Read the full storyWisconsin Supreme Court Leaves in Place Ban on Ballot Box Use for April Election
The Wisconsin Supreme Court is allowing to stand a lower court decision that bans the use of ballot drop boxes for the April elections in the state.
However, the boxes will still be permissible in primaries next week, with the possibility that the high court will allow them to be used in future elections.
Last month, a judge in Waukesha County ruled that boxes could not be used, a decision that was met with an appeals court ruling allowing them to be used during the February primary.
The state Supreme Court then intervened, ruling 4-3 Friday that they could be used during the primary but declined a request from the state Elections Commission to extend that policy through April.
Read the full storyWisconsin Elections Commission Gives Election Managers Leeway to Add Information to Absentee Ballots
Local election managers across Wisconsin are being told to fill in missing information – a practice commonly referred to as “curing” – on absentee ballots if they can find it.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission on Monday night voted down a proposal that would instruct clerks to contact voters before making any changes to absentee ballots.
Commissioners then immediately voted to approve guidance that allows clerks to cure ballots on their own.
Read the full storyAppeals Court Rules Ballot Drop Boxes Allowed in Wisconsin February Primary
Voters in Wisconsin will be able to use ballot drop boxes in the next election after all.
An appeals court in Madison on Monday unanimously ruled against a Waukesha County judge who said the drop boxes are not permitted under the state’s election laws.
The appeals court says there’s not enough time to let voters know that ballot drop boxes aren’t allowed. Some ballots for the February 15th primary election have already been mailed, and some of them say voters can return their ballots to drop boxes.
Read the full storyGeorgia Senate Rejects Constitutional Amendment Banning Noncitizen Voting
The Georgia Senate rejected a measure Monday that could have changed the state constitution to clarify only U.S. citizens can vote in the state.
Senate Resolution 363 would place a constitutional amendment on an election ballot for voter approval. The resolution, however, did not receive the required approval of two-thirds of the Senate on Monday.
“Voting is sacred, and citizenship should matter,” said Sen. Butch Miller, R-Gainesville, one of the sponsors of the bill.
Read the full storyCommentary: The Democrats Embrace Voter Intimidation
Joe Biden has claimed “democracy is under attack” and that to save “democracy” we must annihilate Senate norms such as the legislative filibuster. If you don’t believe that this crisis exists and act immediately, his argument goes, the sun won’t rise ever again; the oceans will dry up, and you’re an evil racist like Jefferson Davis, Bull Connor, and George Wallace (Democrats every last one—and Biden actually sought Wallace’s support back when Biden wanted to be liked by the Wallaces and Byrds of the Democratic Party.) But why let facts get in the way of a good Grandpa Dementia bedtime story?
Of course the real reason for the shrieking hysteria from Biden and the Left is that they’re confronting what is likely to be an electoral tsunami in the fall. Most Americans with half a brain have realized after a year under the Biden presidency that the Left’s policies and politicians are absolute failures. That’s why Biden has a 33 percent approval rating. And it’s why moderate Democrats like Senators Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) want nothing to do with Biden, his policies, or his efforts at rewriting Senate rules.
Progressives of course had a premonition that their policies would wreak havoc upon the American people. To protect themselves from electoral accountability they immediately introduced a bill to federalize election law for the Left’s partisan advantage. This comes as no surprise from the Democratic Party of Tammany Hall, which has a long, sordid history of rigging election laws to hang onto power through the intimidation of voters.
Read the full storyCommentary: Replacing the Irreplaceable Nancy Pelosi
Last week there was quite a lot of news media chatter about swapping Hillary Clinton for Joe Biden on the 2024 Democrat presidential ticket, a fascinating concept that pundits couldn’t stop talking about. It didn’t receive nearly the headlines, but whispers involving the impending retirement of Speaker Nancy Pelosi — and her eventual replacement — have also begun in earnest.
Of course, there’s been no formal announcement that she’s leaving — either from the Speaker herself or the poohbahs at Democrat National Committee headquarters. But like all worst kept secrets, everyone with a brain and some knowledge of American politics understands that Pelosi shares characteristics with a ticking time bomb set to go off later this year.
With the prospects for Democrats holding the majority after this year’s federal midterm elections growing dimmer by the day, folks have initiated a political death watch for the soon-to-be 82-year-old gavel bearer. A large number of veteran party incumbents have officially indicated they’re heading for the exits after this session concludes. Combined with redistricting changes (after the 2020 census) and a basketful of “moderate” (they’re really not balanced, but that’s how the media refers to them) Democrats facing fierce headwinds in their swing districts, and the numbers bloodbath could/should be scary.
Read the full storyCommentary: Conspiracies as Realities, Realities as Conspiracies
American politics over the last half decade has become immersed in a series of conspiracy charges leveled by Democrats against their opponents that, in fact, are happening because of them and through them. The consequences of these conspiracies becoming reality and reality revealing itself as conspiracy have been costly to American prestige, honor, and security. As we move away from denouncing realists as conspiracists, and self-pronounced “realists” are revealed as the true conspirators, let’s review a few of the more damaging of these events.
Russians on the Brain
Consider that the Trump election of 2016, the transition, and the first two years of the Trump presidency were undermined by a media-progressive generated hoax of “Russian collusion.”
The “bombshell” and “walls are closing in” mythologies dominated the network news and cable outlets. It took five years to expose them as rank agit-prop.
Read the full story