Instead of counting Joe Biden’s brain cells, we need to be counting “vigilantes,” the self-proclaimed vote fraud hunters who, under new state laws, can challenge the vote of their fellow Americans and stop their votes from being counted.
In 2022, 88 self-appointed GOP vote fraud hunters challenged 180,000 voters’ registrations in Georgia.
They successfully removed thousands of voters from the rolls in that state. The group behind the attack on US citizens, True the Vote, glorying in their success in Georgia, has rolled out the vote challenge operation to several swing states
and––Are you ready for this numbers?––they signed up 44,000 volunteer vigilante vote challengers so far this year.
We’ve gone from 88 vigilantes in one state to 44,000 challengers in dozens of states. That number, 44,000, should ring a bell. It happens to be Biden’s margin of victory in 2020. Therefore, if each vigilante can wipe even one voter off the rolls in a swing state, there goes the election.
And some of those vigilantes challenge
thousands of voters in a single county.
I’m non-partisan: I don’t tell folks how to vote. But it’s a cold fact that every single vigilante vote challenger so far is Republican–including top GOP officials.
In 2022, we exposed the mass attack on a staggering 180,000 voters in Georgia organized by True the Vote, based in Texas, and their comrades in the Republican Party.
Working with our allies NAACP, Rainbow/PUSH, New Georgia Project and Black Voters Matter, we were able to block most of the challenges, yet thousands of voters still lost their right to a ballot.
As key voting rights attorney, Mark Elias, has warned,
“If the virus of mass voter challenges is an epidemic threatening to sweep across the nation and undermine our democracy, then Georgia is patient zero. We have already seen the virus of voter challenges spread. New Republican election vigilante groups are cropping up around the country to lodge mass challenges against unsuspecting voters.”
While True the Vote has already signed up 44,000 vote challengers, they are not alone. Trump's lawyer, Cleta Mitchell, is using a system called “EagleAI" that has already challenged 10,000 voters in Florida. Now, they are preparing to attack in swing states. Look out Pennsylvania: vigilantes have already challenged 16,000 in Pittsburg.
And there are other groups joining the vigilante vote challenger game. In Arizona, where Biden squeaked by Trump by only 10,457 votes, the vigilantes call themselves the Pigpen Project mounting challenges on top of those challenged by True the Votes' MAGA-nauts.
All the groups are using the same bogus methods of targeting voters as True the Vote––which
has not found a single illegal voter despite the hundreds of thousands challenged. Vigilantes in Arizona are flying drones over ballot drop boxes, and in some cases, showing up at the ballot boxes with weapons.
Teresa Mabry of the Arizona Democracy Resource Center, told me,
“They had drones going over people, policing people. [Election] employees were afraid to go into their offices, we sent out teams out to make sure they would be OK.
“So when you’re showing up at a polling location and militarized our military looking uniforms, nice goggles and with weapons, or just posting out in front of these boxes, you were trying to intimidate folks who have experienced a history and a legacy of violence.”
And back in swing state Georgia, the GOP legislature passed a new law, SB189, that will make it much harder for county clerks to reject the challenges.
Gerald Griggs, President of the Georgia NAACP told me,
“So I fully expect 2024 to be the wild, wild West when it comes to election challenges. So if there were 180,000 challenged before, I’m looking at more maybe 300,000 or 400,000 [in Georgia alone]. They want to make it easier to challenge and harder to vote.
“So they will have unlimited voter challenges both before and after the election, unlike in 2022, when there was a cut off period for the actual, voter challenges. So vigilantes are going to be out in mass. “
If no one challenges the challengers, Biden is toast in Georgia. Same for Arizona, Nevada, Wisconsin and Texas.
This is the true danger to democracy in 2024. Our job this year is to make sure that the voters, not vigilantes, pick our President.
In 2020, the Palast team’s film,
Vigilante: Georgia’s Vote Suppression Hitman was a crucial tool for voting rights groups to overturn the vigilante challenges. Still, thousands of those challenges went through, including the successful removal of African-American soldiers assigned outside Georgia. But an American soldier, whatever color, should not lose their vote because they are instructed by the Commander-in-Chief to deploy away from home.
While we stopped many of those challenges, and successfully re-registered thousands with our voting rights partners, the laws and court rulings have blessed the vigilante vote hunts for 2024.
Because True the Vote's vigilante challenges have gone national, so must our investigation and film. Therefore, on September 6, we will launch,
Vigilantes Inc.: America’s New Vote Suppression Hitmen.
Narrated by Rosario Dawson and produced by Martin Sheen, Maria Florio (Oscar, best documentary) and George DiCaprio.
Help us get this film out: While we’ve finished the filming, we desperately need funds to make sure it gets out into the swing states. Let us save America in 2024 as we helped save Georgia in 2022.
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