According to the IRS, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organizations are prohibited from engaging in “voter training or registration things to do with evidence of bias that … have the influence of favoring a candidate or group of candidates.” But for many many years 501(c)(3) voter engagement packages have been violating the spirit of this law (if not also the letter) by jogging systems plainly favoring Democratic politicians.
The evidence is normally in simple sight. But a lot more in the shadows is a detailed system to bankroll these systems during the 2012 election, disclosed for the reason that of a 2016 details hack of the George Soros-funded Open Society Foundations. The Soros memo from nine many years in the past may have also revealed the embryonic phases of this year’s work by congressional Democrats to consider above federal election laws: the so-known as For the People Act (H.R. 1).
Voter Participation Shenanigans
Political journalists frequently fail to uncover and expose the proof that is correct in front of them. Take into consideration latest protection of the Voter Participation Middle, 1 of these 501(c)(3) organizations. A Time profile from February 2021 teased that it would expose “The Secret Record of the Shadow Marketing campaign That Saved the 2020 Election.” Time’s key-seekers credited Voter Participation Heart with sending “ballot apps to 15 million folks in critical states” and receiving 4.6 million people today to return them.
“All the function we have finished for 17 several years was developed for this second of bringing democracy to people’s doorsteps,” explained the organization’s CEO Tom Lopach, in accordance to the magazine.
Unreported by Time is that the Voter Participation Center’s democracy shipping and delivery wasn’t for all the “people’s doorsteps.” The Voter Participation Heart site proclaims that “We’re the New American Majority” and diligently defines this as “young people today, individuals of shade and single women.”
Obviously, this leaves out some folks. In a suspiciously easy coincidence, exit polling from the 2020 election displays their so-termed “New American Majority” gave 60 % or extra of their votes to Joe Biden.
Take into consideration a unique way to concentrate on a the greater part: Firearms owners (40 p.c of American properties), white men (61 % voted for Trump in 2020), white Protestants (72 per cent for Trump), and opponents of abortion (far more than 4 of every single 10 voters, 72 % guidance for Trump). It is complicated to think about Time failing to report if a voter engagement 501(c)(3) had been skewing so certainly to a proper-leaning constituency. The IRS could even consider see. (An educated cynic may possibly recommend that the only factor that will at any time stop this actions is a comparably wide exertion by a Republican-biased tax-exempt business to do the exact same point.)
While proof of Voter Participation Center support for Democrats is difficult to miss with just a five-next take a look at to its website, considerably additional is discoverable with small more exertion.
Tom Lopach, who did not turn out to be the Voter Participation Center CEO till 2020, has two decades of encounter performing for Democratic politicians and causes. Lopach is also the CEO of the Middle for Voter Information—a 501(c)(4) advocacy business, which is permitted to exhibit a partisan bias.
But the Heart for Voter Information web site identifies it as the “partner organization” of the Voter Participation Middle. A joint news launch sponsored by the two companies in August 2020 proclaimed that Joe Biden’s acceptance speech at the Democratic Nationwide Convention experienced developed an “exceptional response” from their New American Greater part, “one that superior the campaign’s strategy, defined him as a leader, weakened Donald Trump, and lifted Biden’s vote margin.”
The genuine challenge for an honest reporter is getting an instance where the Voter Participation Middle is not violating the crystal clear spirit of the 501(c)(3) tax regulation. Just about everything the firm does and is connected with appears purposely built to have the “effect of favoring a applicant or team of candidates.”
The Soros Memo
The magnitude of this appears to be laid bare in the 2012 election preparing memo tackled to George Soros. Ironically, potential lawbreaking is the reason we know it exists.
According to an August 2016 report in the Hill, DCLeaks (a shadowy cyberhacker group) publicly released “more than 2,000 documents linked to billionaire Democratic donor George Soros and his Open Society Foundations.” In August 2016, DCLeaks also posted the contents of e-mail taken from the Democratic Nationwide Committee and Republican officers.
All these DCLeaks paperwork seem to have been acquired via unlawful knowledge breaches. The website link to the DCLeaks “Soros” archive no more time appears to consist of the stolen knowledge. (Prior to the disappearance of the archive, the Capital Exploration Heart established a PDF duplicate of the 2012 “Soros memo” talked over underneath).
Former Support Personnel International Union president Andy Stern and Deepak Bhargava were purportedly the authors of the memo. Bhargava was then the government director of the Centre for Community Change, nevertheless a further lefty 501(c)(3) tax exempt corporation that has immediate ties to voter engagement packages. The 7-page memorandum was resolved to Soros and his Open up Modern society Foundations’ packages board.
The memo asked for supplemental funding for “voter engagement” during the 2012 election, which would be “narrowly targeted on increasing the participation of Black, Latino and youth constituencies.” It proposed to meld this into a “long-phrase unbiased political power that can keep elected leaders of all events accountable to open up society values and priorities the two prior to and just after Election Day.”
“Open culture values” have been outlined as a lefty grab bag of “priorities we maintain pricey,” these kinds of as tax hikes, paying out boosts, and protecting the power of public employee unions. The memo blamed “dramatic disengagement” of “Black, Latino and younger voters” for the duration of the 2010 mid-expression election for the defeat of open up society priorities and the success of Tea Get together objectives.
Despite the fact that lacking an outreach to “unmarried women,” the memo’s aims were being a dangerously near match to Voter Participation Middle get the job done. This is not a coincidence: The memo continuously referenced Women’s Voices, Females Vote, the title the heart was recognised by at the time. The memo said Women’s Voices was “often cited” for remaining “among the largest voter registration functions in the country.”
Open Violation
Even prior to the identify transform, the intent to violate the spirit of the tax status was an open up magic formula. In his 2012 e book, The Victory Lab: The Top secret Science of Winning Strategies, still left-of-center reporter Sasha Issenberg said this of Women’s Voices: “Even however the group was officially nonpartisan, for tax functions, there was no top secret that the target of all its initiatives was to crank out new votes for Democrats.” Hilariously, the Soros memo supplied posterior protection on this incredibly place: “This is not, equally legally and philosophically, about candidates or parties.” [emphasis in original]
The Soros memo requested for an additional $9 million from the Open up Culture Foundations (on best of $7.3 million now offered) to be despatched to Women’s Voices (Voter Participation Centre) and several other equivalent “voter engagement” tasks.
The memo showed at least $75.4 million previously elevated or pledged for 2012 systems from at minimum 7 other major funders of remaining-wing jobs. The Ford Foundation, one of American history’s excellent battleships of lefty philanthropy, was penciled in for $20 million. The Carnegie Corporation was mentioned as providing $5.6 million.
Victory Lab writer Issenberg portrayed Carnegie as somewhat of a pioneer in the partisan voter engagement lawful ruse: “Because the tax code permitted nonprofit corporations to operate registration and turnout drives as very long as they did not force a individual prospect, arranging ‘historically disenfranchised’ communities (as Carnegie described them) became a backdoor strategy to ginning up Democratic votes outside the house the campaign finance legislation that applied to candidates, parties, and political action committees.”
Paradigm Shift
Far more ambitiously, the Soros memo also asked for funding for a “paradigm shifting campaign” [emphasis in original] to get the hefty lefty donors “out of the voter engagement business.” Common voter registration was the distinct transform contemplated. But the authors also proposed employing the funding for “new concept era.” Tellingly, the memo accused states of creating “onerous new voter identification regulations.”
There is a rational line from the 2012 memo to the For the Folks Act of 2021 supported by the Democratic congressional leadership. If the act as initially prepared passes, it would rip up primary ballot security steps these kinds of as picture identification legislation. It would create automated registration, involve states to permit any voter to vote by mail, and prohibit imposing evidence-of-identification needs for mail-in balloting. Every voter would be entitled to on-line entry to a mail-in ballot and would need to have only attach a signature to “prove” the appropriate man or woman was voting.
The For the Men and women Act would execute the “paradigm shift” proposed by the Soros memo. The left’s large donors would no for a longer time have to have to fund biased voter registration packages. In area of this skirting of the spirit of the tax legislation, we would have improved and universal obtain to election fraud.
Ken Braun is the Capital Analysis Center’s senior investigative researcher.
