In an interview with Breitbart News, the president of voters’ rights and election integrity organization True the Vote says her organization is training and equipping citizens to report suspected election illegalities amid the left’s continued claim that Voter ID laws prevent people from voting.
Catherine Engelbrecht says the Voter ID debate is designed simply to elicit an “emotional response.”
She observes:
That’s what the Obama administration does – it has federalized community organizing, and the mantra of a community organizer is “agitate.” Your power as a community organizer comes from agitation. So, agitate, agitate, agitate, and then you step in and portend to be the voice of the mob, and that’s where these organizers – and this administration – finds a power base.
So, if the left were truly as concerned about people not having photo Voter ID as they insist they are, then why in the world wouldn’t they spend even just a small fraction of the hundreds of millions of dollars they have been given to fight this reported battle to just reach out to the people who say they don’t have IDs and get some to them? How can you live in the modern age and not have any form of identification? People who truly don’t have identification, and now have the opportunity to get a free government ID for the purposes of voting – that should be like a gift to them. Not only is it now making it easier for them to vote, but every other aspect of my life where I have trouble – from cashing a check to buying cough syrup to everything in between – now, it’s all made better.
The whole debate about Voter ID is really just designed to elicit an emotional response. It’s really a classic Alinsky tactic that “the thing is not the thing.” It’s a shell game. And that’s what Voter ID is being trumped up to be. It’s sad because it does have a negative impact – not only on election integrity as a whole – but also it continues to undermine the confidence of the electorate, and that really is in the longer term more dangerous, because a disengaged electorate truly means a runaway government.
Engelbrecht says she has no doubt the federal government’s lust for power is pushing it toward its “ultimate goal, which – with respect to elections – is federalizing elections.”
She explains:
Everything they do, every action that they take is geared toward moving them closer to that goal. Though they are not totally open about it, if you do some research you’ll certainly find instance upon instance where key figures inside the Department of Justice of the Obama administration manage to let their real colors show through and will say things like, “We believe that federalized elections would be a good thing,” or “We believe that mandatory voting would be a good thing,” or “We believe that universal voter registration would be a good thing.” All of these statements are harbingers of things to come that we need to be very aware of.
With seven weeks until the general election, True the Vote has begun to train citizens to report potential election illegalities at the polls.
“Up until the spring of this election season, True the Vote has been working to make sure voter rolls are clean,” Engelbrecht reports with a slight chuckle, referring to the process of “notifying key counties and states when it turns out we find more registered voters than there are eligible voters in the entire population for the county.”
She points out the organization’s new smartphone app called VoteStand that allows citizens to report incidents they see at the polls. The app also provides citizens with an opportunity to record video or audio – though Engelbrecht says True the Vote is very careful to train people about when and where it’s appropriate to take pictures and audio inside the polls.
“But, nevertheless, we give them that access, we give them a live stream of incidents and such that are being reported in their area,” she explains. “What’s key about the VoteStand app is that it’s backed up by True the Vote staffers who, as things get reported, we help distribute that immediately via proper election authorities.”
Engelbrecht provides further details about VoteStand:
Not only do we have a record of what’s happening in real time, but we can – in near real time – notify the appropriate election authority and get something done fast. One of the real challenges of Election Day is that things happen so quickly, and if you’re not aware or you’re not prepared, before you know it the moment has passed and you’re thinking, “What time was it? Where was it?” And you learn the hard way there are certain key pieces of information that are going to be necessary if you try to push forward something into litigation. So, the VoteStand app is a “one stop shop” for chronicling it all.
Engelbrecht says True the Vote has made other advances in training citizens to recognize election problems.
“We’ve done a lot of research and we’ve also spent a lot of time enhancing our learning management system, which is an online vehicle for training,” she explains, adding that her organization has created training videos that will support people’s interests in how to be a poll watcher and how to start such movements as a voter registration drive.
Engelbrecht reports that at this point in time, the states are “locking down” their voter rolls and will soon seal them for the general election – meaning no further changes will be made to them. She adds that while much of the focus is on Election Day itself, the post-Election Day period is just as important:
Not only is it essential to report what’s happening in order to better the process on the day of the election, but also important is the post-election period, when state legislatures come back together and are being told by leftist groups that the voting experience was awful and there were lines for hours and intimidation, etc. But, to be able to prove that in 99.9 percent of the cases – specifically with regard to lines – what the real causes of those lines in many instances are that people are not really knowing or understanding the process well enough to know they should show their ID and move on down the line. You have one person showing a water bill, and one person showing a video card, etc.
“If you can quickly streamline it – those are the kinds of things that go on to form good legislation – based on actual empirical evidence,” she says.
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