{"id":397169,"date":"2021-11-19T15:45:26","date_gmt":"2021-11-19T15:45:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/radiofree.asia\/?guid=6078d49726751c55ed3e6559d346fad6"},"modified":"2021-11-19T15:45:26","modified_gmt":"2021-11-19T15:45:26","slug":"alec-academy-featured-a-whos-who-of-voter-suppression-leaders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2021\/11\/19\/alec-academy-featured-a-whos-who-of-voter-suppression-leaders\/","title":{"rendered":"ALEC \u201cAcademy\u201d Featured a Who\u2019s Who of Voter Suppression Leaders"},"content":{"rendered":"\"People<\/a>

An \u201cAcademy\u201d for state lawmakers on voter suppression strategies run by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in July featured a veritable who\u2019s who of the right-wing leaders behind this year\u2019s disinformation campaign about voter fraud and assaults on voting rights across the country, documents<\/a> obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) show.<\/p>\n

While the July 26-28 session was ostensibly led by the dark money group Honest Elections Project<\/span><\/a>, it was organized, hosted, and bankrolled by ALEC<\/span><\/a>, despite repeated claims by its CEO, Lisa Nelson, that the group does not work on voting issues.<\/p>\n

Nelson provided the formal welcome at the conference\u2019s opening session, ALEC staff organized turnout, and ALEC provided two nights of accommodations at the five-star Grand America Hotel, five meals, and a $450 travel reimbursement for attendees.<\/span> ALEC\u2019s annual meeting was held at the same hotel immediately after the Academy.<\/p>\n

An invite<\/span><\/a> published by CMD in July stated that \u201c13 legislators from across the country\u201d would be in attendance, but the materials acquired by CMD do not include an attendance list.<\/p>\n

Rather than email materials to ALEC lawmakers that may be subject to open records laws, ALEC distributed hard copies of the agenda at registration along with a \u201czip drive containing a resources document and a one-pager on your state\u2019s election policies,\u201d according to an email<\/a> from Sarah Wall, ALEC\u2019s manager of legislative outreach and coalitions, obtained by CMD. Wall\u2019s email also lists Michael Bowman, president of ALEC Action, as a key contact for the event.<\/p>\n

Nelson tipped her hand about ALEC\u2019s voter suppression subterfuge in May at a meeting of the far-right Council for National Policy. Video<\/span><\/a> of the event obtained by CMD shows Nelson speaking frankly about ALEC\u2019s work on voting and revealing its plans to outsource model policy on the controversial topic to avert the spotlight. \u201cWe don\u2019t have model policy. We will be developing that at the Honest Elections Project [Academy], through them,\u201d<\/span> Nelson said.<\/p>\n

Honest Elections Project, the group ALEC chose to carry the ball on its voting agenda, is a dark money operation formed in February 2020 to push for voting restrictions and spread baseless and dangerous claims<\/span><\/a> about election fraud, laying the groundwork for Trump\u2019s attempt to overturn the election. It is a project of The 85 Fund<\/span><\/a>, the new legal name for the Judicial Education Project, a group linked to Leonard Leo<\/span><\/a><\/span> that played a central role in Trump\u2019s effort to pack the federal judiciary with right-wing judges.<\/p>\n

Speakers at the Academy featured many of the key strategists and leaders on the Right spreading misinformation around voter fraud, promoting Trump\u2019s lies around the 2020 election, and pushing sweeping new voting restrictions.<\/p>\n

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita gave the keynote address. A proponent<\/span><\/a> of Trump\u2019s Big Lie that the election was stolen, Rokita recently testified<\/span><\/a> in front of the U.S. Senate against strengthening the federal Voting Rights Act.<\/p>\n

Rokita was one of only four state attorneys general to not sign a National Association of Attorneys General letter<\/span><\/a> condemning the Jan. 6 violent insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, and is a member of the Republican Attorneys General Association<\/span><\/a> (RAGA). RAGA was a member<\/span><\/a> of the \u201cMarch to Save America\u201d coalition that organized the Jan. 6 rally, and its policy arm, Rule of Law Defense Fund<\/span><\/a>, sent out robocalls urging supporters to \u201cmarch to the Capitol building and call on Congress to stop the steal<\/span><\/a>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Agenda Focused on Election Legislation<\/b><\/h2>\n

Most of the Academy sessions focused on legislation, giving legislators a chance to discuss bills to restrict voting that have already been introduced and passed in their states this year and hear from Republican-aligned leaders about what more they think needs to be done.<\/p>\n

By the time ALEC held its voter suppression Academy in July, 18 states had already passed 30 laws<\/span><\/a> this year making it harder to vote, according to the Brennan Center for Justice.<\/p>\n

The Honest Elections Project\u2019s Executive Director Jason Snead, who worked with ALEC to organize the event, laid out \u201cpriorities for election integrity across the states\u201d and polling results in a breakfast session and appeared on another panel on how to \u201cshore up\u201d legislative control over election processes with Jason Torchinsky and Lee Goodman.<\/p>\n

The Honest Elections Project has aggressively promoted a radical legal theory called the \u201cindependent state legislatures doctrine<\/span><\/a>,\u201d<\/span> which holds that state courts don\u2019t have the authority to review state election laws and would empower heavily gerrymandered state legislatures to determine election outcomes.<\/p>\n

Republican legislators have already introduced and passed bills in 2021 \u201cinterfering with nonpartisan local election administration and consolidating power to administer and determine elections results themselves,\u201d the Voting Rights Lab reported<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Snead is a former senior policy analyst with the Heritage Foundation where he developed its Election Fraud Database, which the Brennan Center for Justice says \u201cgrossly exaggerated<\/span><\/a>\u201d the extent of voter fraud.<\/p>\n

Torchinsky is general counsel for the National Republican Redistricting Trust and has been defending ALEC against CMD\u2019s state complaints<\/span><\/a> alleging that ALEC illegally gave sophisticated voter management campaign software linked to the Republican National Committee to its legislative members.<\/p>\n

Goodman is an elections attorney and a former Republican chairman and commissioner of the Federal Election Commission (FEC) between 2013 and 2018.<\/p>\n

Jessica Anderson, the executive director of Heritage Action, and Ken Blackwell, executive director of the MAGA voter suppression center<\/span><\/a> at America First Policy Institute led another legislative session on \u201csecuring absentee ballots.\u201d<\/p>\n

Anderson bragged to Heritage donors<\/span><\/a> in April that policies, \u201cseverely restricting mail ballot drop boxes\u201d and \u201cpreventing election officials from sending absentee ballot request forms to voters\u201d were among recommendations Heritage gave Georgia for its massive voter suppression bill.<\/p>\n

Blackwell\u2019s Center for <\/span>Election<\/span> Integrity<\/span> recently published a \u201cTop 25 Common-Sense State Election Integrity Reforms<\/a>\u201d fact sheet that includes these Heritage recommendations alongside other extreme voter suppression wish-list items, such as eliminating no-excuse absentee ballots and requiring an affidavit for absentee applications.<\/p>\n

Blackwell also moderated a panel at the Academy with state legislators \u201cdiscussing election challenges they\u2019ve faced in their own states.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another panel over breakfast covered \u201cthings to consider with implementation of laws\u201d related to election day voter registration, \u201celection observer protections,\u201d and organizing seniors to work the polls. Chairman of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission Donald Palmer, a Trump appointee, and Cleta Mitchell<\/span><\/a>, chair of the Conservative Partnership Institute\u2019s Election Integrity Network,<\/span> led the session.<\/p>\n

Mitchell is a Big Lie fueler and Trump legal advisor who lost her job at Foley & Lardner following news that she participated in a January call in which Trump asked Georgia election officials to \u201cfind\u201d enough votes to make him the winner of the state\u2019s electoral votes.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn Dec. 30, Cleta Mitchell wrote to White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows and offered to send some 1,800 pages of documents purporting to support claims of election fraud,\u201d The Washington Post Magazine <\/i>reported<\/span><\/a>. Meadows is now a colleague of Mitchell\u2019s at the Conservative Partnership Institute.<\/p>\n

Three Republican secretaries of state, Tennessee\u2019s Tre Hargett, Kentucky\u2019s Michael Adams, and West Virginia\u2019s Mac Warner, spoke on a panel about \u201cwhat policies the states need to employ to make it easier to vote and harder to cheat.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cEasier to vote and harder to cheat\u201d has been a favored talking point of Republicans in recent years.<\/p>\n

All three are active in the Republican Secretaries of State Committee<\/span><\/a> (RSSC), with Hargett serving as chair and Adams as vice chair. Republican secretaries of state produced a report on \u201cBest Practices for Making It Easier to Vote and Harder to Cheat<\/span><\/a>\u201d for the Republican State Leadership Committee, obtained by CMD.<\/p>\n

The RSSC holds monthly calls<\/a> that Commissioner Palmer often attends. Secretary Warner and Palmer also participated in an \u201coff-the-record\u201d Election University session on June 21 as part of the U.S. House GOP\u2019s \u201cFaith in Elections Project,\u201d as first reported<\/span><\/a> by CMD.<\/p>\n

ALEC Lawmakers Consider Litigation<\/b><\/h2>\n

ALEC\u2019s Academy featured two panels on litigation. The first dealt with \u201canticipating challenges to the Voting Rights Act in Arizona,\u201d legal challenges mounted by Democratic voting rights attorney Marc Elias, and redistricting fights, and was led by with Republican lawyers Torchinsky, Michael Thielen, and Brian Barnes.<\/p>\n

Thielen is the executive director of the Republican National Lawyers Association and served on the national board of Lawyers for Trump in 2020. Barnes was involved in legal challenges to changes in voting procedures in North Carolina and Pennsylvania last fall.<\/p>\n

Goodman and Utah\u2019s former Solicitor General Tyler Green led the second panel on \u201coperationalizing litigation challenges.\u201d Noted in the description of the panel are \u201cways to challenge the scope of litigation attacks on new election integrity legislation (defense) as well as advance the ball on election integrity (offense).\u201d<\/p>\n

As of Oct. 3, \u201cat least 43 voting cases have been filed in 12 states, and Georgia and Texas lead the way with ten new lawsuits each in 2021,\u201d the Brennan Center reports<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Training Sessions on “the Left”<\/b><\/h2>\n

Two trainings focused on \u201cthe Left\u201d filled out the remaining agenda at the ALEC Academy. Hans von Spakovsky, senior legal fellow and manager of the Heritage Foundation\u2019s \u201cElection Reform Initiative,\u201d and Ken Cuccinelli, former Trump staffer and chairman of the Election Transparency Initiative, led a session focused on \u201cthe Left\u2019s attack on our election system\u201d through \u201cstate-level attacks on election integrity legislation\u201d and HR 1, the sweeping voting rights and campaign reform bill pending in Congress.<\/p>\n

Spakovsky, who was appointed by Trump to his ill-fated<\/span><\/a> Presidential Advisory Committee on Election Integrity, has been a major mouthpiece of the voter fraud myth<\/span><\/a> from the Right for well over a decade.<\/p>\n

President of the Capital Research Center<\/span><\/a> Scott Walter gave the keynote for a \u201cMapping the Left Lunch.\u201d Walter and CRC received funding from the Bradley Foundation to develop<\/span><\/a> <\/span>an \u201cOnline Encyclopedia of the Left,\u201d<\/span> inspired by CMD\u2019s SourceWatch, called \u201cInfluence Watch.\u201d The site was \u201cconstructed in partnership with Berman and Company,\u201d run by PR spin doctor Richard Berman, and in collaboration with ALEC.<\/p>\n

Arn Pearson contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n\n

This post was originally published on Latest \u2013 Truthout<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"People<\/a><\/p>\n

ALEC hosted and bankrolled the event despite repeated claims by its CEO that the group does not work on voting issues.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":1479,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19047,38664,432,49,50,4,1231],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397169"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1479"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=397169"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":397170,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/397169\/revisions\/397170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=397169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=397169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=397169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}