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Who’s Behind the Only Citizens Vote Coalition? [1]
['Made With']
Date: 2024-11
Records reviewed by Issue One illuminate connections, secretive donors behind groups pushing false narratives that noncitizens are voting in U.S. elections
Introduction
In America, only citizens can vote and have their votes counted in elections.
People who are not U.S. citizens are ineligible to vote in federal elections. The federal government has strict laws, which have been in place for more than 25 years, to ensure that only eligible Americans vote.
Under a 1996 law passed by Congress, noncitizens who attempt to vote face tough penalties — including steep fines, prison time, and deportation. These stiff penalties generally serve as a strong deterrent against illegal voting.
Moreover, there are processes in place in every state to ensure only eligible votes are counted. State election officials have systems to verify an individual’s voter eligibility and to ensure voter rolls are accurate. These include voter registration requirements, state-mandated IDs, and verification checks.
After the 2016 election, the Brennan Center for Justice surveyed local election officials in 42 jurisdictions with high immigrant populations and found just 30 cases of suspected noncitizens voting out of 23.5 million votes cast, a rate of just 0.0001%.
And a 2022 investigation in Georgia — a state with a population of nearly 11 million — found there were 1,319 incidents of noncitizens attempting to register to vote between 2016 and 2022, with none of the noncitizens being allowed to register to vote because of the checks used by election officials there.
Nevertheless, polls show that nearly half of Americans — including more than 80% of Republicans — are concerned that large numbers of noncitizens will attempt to vote in this year’s presidential election. And according to a survey conducted last month by Issue One, 67% of Americans reported encountering content on social media about noncitizens illegally voting in elections.
As The New Yorker recently put it: “If the lasting narrative of unproven interference in 2020 is that illegitimate ballots were ferried in and dumped in drop boxes, the analogous plot in 2024 appears to be that vast numbers of noncitizens will try to vote.”
One reason this false narrative has metastasized is because of the work of a network of groups that calls itself the “Only Citizens Vote Coalition,” which has been amplifying the threat of noncitizens casting ballots in our elections.
The following report maps out the ecosystem of the Only Citizens Vote Coalition, highlighting some of the major groups and their known funders in recent years, based on an Issue One analysis of tax filings and campaign finance reports. These contributions and connections can also be explored in further detail in this new interactive data visualization and this downloadable spreadsheet created by Issue One that details the nearly 600 financial transactions.
What is the Only Citizens Vote Coalition?
The Only Citizens Vote Coalition — which counts more than 80 organizations as members — is invested in using scare tactics to sow doubt in the election process, which could help lay the groundwork for partisan actors to challenge the results of the election if they do not like the outcome.
While some of the organizations that are members of the Only Citizens Vote Coalition work on issues other than election law, in signing on as members of this coalition, they are helping lend credibility to the biggest myth circulating around this year’s election: That large numbers of noncitizens are going to illegally vote, despite the fact that election experts agree that noncitizens voting in federal elections is virtually nonexistent and has never been common enough to determine the outcome of elections.
The coalition involves several notable people who supported President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election. Some of these people are already working to bolster Trump’s chances in the 2024 presidential election and aid legal challenges that may arise after.
These people include the likes of former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, former Trump transition team power player Ed Corrigan, former Trump Cabinet official and co-chair of Trump’s 2025 transition team Linda McMahon, former White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, and controversial lawyer Cleta Mitchell — who launched the Only Citizens Vote Coalition earlier this year.
Notably, more than 20 organizations involved in this coalition — roughly 25% of its entire membership — have also been involved in Project 2025, the plan created by high-profile Trump supporters and spearheaded by the Heritage Foundation to steer the policy agenda of a second Trump administration.
On the election administration front, Project 2025, in the words of the Brennan Center for Justice, “proposes to withhold critical federal support” for election officials’ work and “threatens to weaponize the Justice Department and other federal agencies to further politicize election administration.” It even explicitly calls for the prosecution of Pennsylvania’s chief election official for issuing guidance to protect access to mail-in voting during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
On its website, the Only Citizens Vote Coalition asserts that “no country can survive that allows guests and illegals to determine the future of its citizens.”
It has endorsed federal legislation, supported by many congressional Republicans, known as the SAVE Act, which would require voters to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote — a measure many congressional Democrats and voting rights groups say is redundant and unnecessary.
Several coalition members — including the 85 Fund’s Honest Elections Project, Heritage Action for America, the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Election Protection Project — were among the voices that urged Congress last month to pair the SAVE Act with a short-term government funding measure. This pairing was supported by Trump but was ultimately rejected by the House of Representatives.
Officials from several coalition members appeared at the press conference with House Republicans when they introduced the SAVE Act earlier this year — including former Trump administration official and Election Transparency Initiative Chairman Ken Cuccinelli, former Trump White House advisor and America First Legal Foundation President Stephen Miller, and Mitchell, a lawyer known for her participation in Trump’s January 2021 call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, in which Trump urged Raffensperger to “find” the necessary votes to overturn now-President Joe Biden’s win in the 2020 election in the state.
All the while, one coalition member’s so-called “election integrity” efforts are led by former Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA), who supported Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and unsuccessfully challenged Raffensperger in the 2022 GOP primary for secretary of state, after Raffensperger certified now-Biden’s victory over Trump in Georgia.
Some coalition members have supported the controversial new election administration measures adopted by the Trump-backed Georgia State Election Board, which a judge recently called “illegal, unconstitutional, and void.”
A handful of coalition members are involved in multiple legal challenges to longstanding election administration practices in swing states, including one lawsuit on behalf of an election-denying election official in Georgia who wants the discretion to refuse to certify election results.
And around National Voter Registration Day last month, the coalition coordinated its own effort on social media that it called “National Only Citizens Vote Week,” as Wired and Documented previously reported.
Key people involved in the Only Citizens Vote Coalition
Tax filings show lawyer Cleta Mitchell herself is an officer of four of the 80-plus organizations active in the coalition. She is the chairman of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, the president of the Election Integrity Network, the president of the FAIR Elections Fund, and a senior legal fellow and secretary at the Conservative Partnership Institute.
Issue One’s review of tax records show that more than 450 individuals served as officers of groups that are members of the Only Citizens Vote Coalition during the most recent fiscal year, though less than 10% were officers of multiple coalition members.
Other key players in the coalition, in alphabetical order, include:
Ken Blackwell, who has held a variety of political positions at the local, state, and national level, including serving as the secretary of state of Ohio and ambassador to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights. Blackwell is a board member of the Public Interest Legal Foundation, vice president of the Council for National Policy, a board member of the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, chair of the Conservative Action Project, and chair of the Center for Election Integrity at the America First Policy Institute.
Ed Corrigan, who has more than 25 years of leadership experience on Capitol Hill and with a variety of conservative advocacy groups, including the Heritage Foundation. After Trump won the election in 2016, Corrigan was part of Trump’s transition team, leading the personnel selection process for all domestic policy departments. Corrigan is the president and CEO of the Conservative Partnership Institute, a director of the America First Legal Foundation, a director of the State Freedom Caucus Network, a director of the Immigration Accountability Project, and a board member of Citizens for Renewing America.
Wesley Denton, who served as the acting chief of staff of the Office of Management and Budget during the Trump administration and previously spent more than a decade working in Congress, including working as the communications director for Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC). Denton is the COO of the Conservative Partnership Institute, treasurer of Citizens for Renewing America, and a director of the Immigration Accountability Project.
Tim Dunn, a billionaire and chief executive officer of the oil and gas operation CrownQuest Operating. He is among the most influential conservative political donors in Texas. Dunn is the chairman of America First Works, a board member of the Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Election Protection Project, and a director of the Center for Election Integrity at the America First Policy Institute.
Trent England, who is a director of People for Opportunity, founder and executive director of Save Our States, and counsel for the Honest Elections Project. He is also a fellow at the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs, where he earlier served as executive vice president. He previously worked as a legal policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation and was a fellow at the Claremont Institute, a California-based think tank at which lawyer John Eastman, who attempted to aid Trump in his failed attempts to overturn the 2020 election results, works as a senior fellow.
Sean Fieler, a hedge fund manager and advocate for faith-based conservatism. Fieler is the president and chief investment office at Equinox Partners, a prominent hedge fund based out of Stamford, Connecticut. He is a board member of Heritage Action for America as well as a board member of the Susan B. Anthony List and the chairman of the board of the American Principles Project, which both co-sponsor the Election Transparency Initiative.
Gene Hamilton, a lawyer who worked in the Justice Department during the Trump administration. Hamilton is the vice president and general counsel of the America First Legal Foundation and the secretary and a director of the Election Integrity Network.
Linda McMahon, the co-founder and former chief executive office of World Wrestling Entertainment who served in Trump’s Cabinet as administrator of the Small Business Administration and is now a co-chair of Trump’s 2025 transition team. She is a board member of America First Works and the chair of the America First Policy Institute, which houses the Center for Election Integrity.
Mark Meadows, a former congressman from North Carolina and chairman of the House Freedom Caucus who served as the White House Chief of Staff during the Trump administration. Meadows is a senior partner at the Conservative Partnership Institute and a director of the State Freedom Caucus Network.
Secretive money networks bankroll coalition members
Some of the groups involved with the Only Citizens Vote Coalition are relatively new players, incorporated in the past year or two. Others have been around for years, if not decades.
Tracking the money flowing to the newest members of this coalition is all but impossible, as mandatory government filings that illuminate this money flow will not be required to be filed with the IRS for months.
Following the money to groups that have existed for years even has challenges, as annual IRS Form 990 tax filings must only be submitted by nonprofits 11 months after the end of any given fiscal year, meaning documents detailing many groups’ financial activities in 2023 will not be publicly available until after Election Day 2024 — and tax filings covering 2024 for many groups will not be publicly available until November 2025.
Nevertheless, Issue One reviewed all available nonprofit tax filings and succeeded in shining a light on groups that have financially supported coalition members in the recent past.
All of these transactions can be seen in this new interactive data visualization and in this downloadable spreadsheet, based on Issue One’s review of hundreds of annual tax filings, including those maintained on the IRS’ website and ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer database, as well as campaign finance filings submitted to the Federal Election Commission.
In all, Issue One tracked more than $590 million in contributions since January 2020 to nearly three dozen groups that are now part of the Only Citizens Vote Coalition from more than 140 donor organizations.
While all of this funding preceded the creation of the Only Citizens Vote Coalition and the contributions identified by Issue One undoubtedly supported a range of programmatic work, many of these groups have been calling for election-related reforms for years. And while some of these organizations are large groups that pursue multiple goals beyond their voting-related agendas, our analysis is illustrative of the types of funding that flows to these organizations.
It is simply impossible, under the IRS’ current disclosure system for nonprofit advocacy groups, to know in real-time how much money any of the groups that are part of the Only Citizens Vote Coalition are spending on their activities this year, or which funders are supporting them now. An analysis of past donors in recent years, though, may hold clues.
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[1] Url:
https://issueone.org/articles/whos-behind-the-only-citizens-vote-coalition/
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