Progressive organizations, many backed by billionaire activist George Soros, are at the front lines of a campaign advocating for a “vote by mail” system in the upcoming presidential election, citing fears that the Chinese coronavirus pandemic makes it too dangerous to vote in person.
President Donald Trump warned that voting by mail would hurt the Republican Party, lambasting Democrat proposals for more money in the coronavirus stimulus bill to fund absentee and vote-by-mail options.
“The things they had in there were crazy,” Trump said. “They had things – levels of voting that, if you ever agreed to it, you’d never have a Republican elected in this country again.”
Analysts have posited that such proposals help the Democratic Party. Republicans specifically fear the prospect of voter fraud, since mail-in voting would be much harder to authenticate.
Soros’s Open Society Foundations have long sought to change the way Americans vote, also funding groups looking to expand the use of electronic and online voting systems nationwide.
Leading the mail-in ballot charge is the Brennan Center for Justice, located at NYU School of Law. The Brennan Center is heavily financed by Soros’s Open Society Foundations and is the recipient of numerous Open Society grants. Breitbart News previously reported the Brennan Center was listed in leaked Open Society Foundations documents as receiving funds specifically earmarked for “litigation to expand access to registration and improve ease of voting.”
Alongside the Brennan Center are a slew of progressive groups tied to Soros money that are working overtime to push mail-in voting. Some of the groups are using the coronavirus crisis to advocate permanent changes to the way Americans vote.
The Brennan Center released a blueprint for voting reform, in response to the coronavirus pandemic, that has been widely cited by news media as making a central argument for a universal vote-by-mail option.
The Brennan document was spotlighted by such outlets as the New York Times, Washington Post, Axios, Politico, the Guardian, and Reuters among many others.
Democrat Sens. Amy Klobuchar (MN) and Chris Coons (DE) cited the Brennan Center’s coronavirus voting plan in a letter to House and Senate leaders, urging extra funding for the scheme. Klobuchar and Coons are among over a dozen Democrat senators who introduced a bill last month to allow for the widespread mail-in ballots, along with other updated voting measures for the upcoming presidential election. Democrat Reps. Suzan DelBene (WA), Earl Blumenauer (OR), and Jamie Raskin (MD) introduced a companion bill in the House.
The Brennan Center’s plan calls for a “universal vote-by-mail option for all voters.” It advocates for “inactive and recently purged voters (who may have been improperly removed from the rolls)” to be sent provisional ballots by mail if they request a mail-in ballot.
The Brennan blueprint calls for expanded online voter registration and allows for mail-in ballots to be processed prior to the close of polls on Election Day.
The document lobbies for polling place modification and preparation including “same-day registration, real-time address updates, and provisional balloting for certain individuals.” Brennan doesn’t define which “certain individuals” should receive same-day registration.
Brennan also advocates expanded early voting, with states offering at least two weeks of early in-person voting or a minimum of five days.
“This would be a massive undertaking but I think it’s absolutely necessary to make sure that we are prepared to run our elections in November, and I think all the problems we have been having in primaries in the last few weeks is evidence we need to start now,” said Lawrence Norden, the director of Election Reform at the Brennan Center and one of the report’s authors.
The Soros-funded Brennan Center’s mail-in ballot plan was weaponized by the Stand Up America activist group, which launched a nationwide program urging Americans to nudge Congress to fund the voting changes. The group’s activities reportedly resulted in more than 19,000 calls to congressional offices in one day alone.
Stand Up America is funded by the Sixteen Thirty Fund, which is managed by the shadowy Arabella Advisors, a for-profit consultancy funded by far-left donors. The Soros-funded Democracy Alliance recommended that donors invest several million dollars into Sixteen Thirty Fund.
The massively Soros-funded American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), which routinely partners with Brennan, has been pumping materials urging coronavirus voting legislation that pushes mail-in voting.
Soros’s Open Society Foundations donated $50 million to the ACLU. The Brennan Center has been the recipient of numerous grants from Soros’s Open Society Foundations totaling over $7,466,000 from 2000 to 2010.
Meanwhile, a coalition of progressive groups are reportedly mounting a multimillion-dollar campaign to not only change the presidential election system to mail-in voting during coronavirus, but to keep the mail-in balloting as part of the permanent way Americans will vote in the future.
The other groups in the mail-in advocacy coalition include the National Association of Non-Partisan Reformers, Public Citizen, Common Cause, National Vote at Home Institute and the Center for Secure and Modern Elections.
Common Cause is funded by Soros’s Open Society Foundations. So is Public Citizen.
The Center for Secure and Modern Elections is a project of the left-leaning New Venture Fund, which doesn’t disclose its donors.
The National Vote at Home Institute is partnered with the Soros-funded League of Women Voters, as well as the Soros-funded Common Cause.
The National Association of Non-Partisan Reformers lists its founding organization members as including FairVote. FairVote is a project of the Soros-funded Center for Voting and Democracy.
Aaron Klein is Breitbart’s Jerusalem bureau chief and senior investigative reporter. He is a New York Times bestselling author and hosts the popular weekend talk radio program, “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio.” Follow him on Twitter @AaronKleinShow.
Joshua Klein contributed research to this article. Follow him on Twitter @JoshuaKlein_
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