A Guest Post by Becky Behrends, M.D. Vice President of Research for Michigan Citizens for Election Integrity (MC4EI)
Michigan voters need to dump Proposal 2 “Promote STEAL the Vote” that will change their Constitution and forever legalize voter fraud in their state. They have a chance to dump the Democrat-led proposal into the trash bin of election history and stop this attempt to allow billionaires to take over our elections.
“Fakebook” founder, Mark Zuckerberg, got away with it once with his financial influence peddling in the 2020 General Election, infamously known as “Zuckbucks.”
As the Republican outcry over this became a bit too hot, Zuckerberg announced in April 2022 that he would not be doing the same thing in 2022 ie funneling money into elections.
In fact, as of mid-September, 24 states have passed laws banning the private funding of elections. Twelve counties have done so also. Livingston County, Michigan, was the second county nationwide to do so.
Many Republican voters do not even realize that Proposal 2, known as the Right to Voting Policies Amendment, will also allow private donations to fund elections! And if this proposal is passed, it will be added as an amendment to the state constitution! Permanent!! Extremely hard to undo!!
In a recent Detroit Free Press article, reporter Clara Hendrickson stated that both Democratic and Republican-leaning communities received Zuckbucks election grants in 2020. Thus, this proves there was no partisan purchasing of the election. In fact, she pointed out that a GOP-appointed judge dismissed a lawsuit over Zuckbucks because all communities that applied for the grant money received it, whether Democrat or Republican.
So, why the fuss? Here is why.
A lawsuit has been filed against Secretary of State Benson over allowing private donations to be injected into the election process in Michigan. Thomas More Society lawyers claim that the Secretary of State has the responsibility under Michigan’s Constitution and Election Code to ensure that every voter has equal access to the ballot.
Democrats got around the “equal access to the ballot” requirement by making sure that red, as well as blue communities, received grant money. Rural, red communities received the $5000 minimum or less. But the largest total dollar amounts of the $17 million in grants to Michigan went to blue communities by far. Almost half of the amount went to Detroit.
And what did Benson say? Sorry, but she was not responsible for the millions of dollars of private grants that flooded into the state in the 2020 election because “she did not personally hand out the money”. Isn’t that rich? And from the mouth of the Chief Election Officer in the state!
84% of the total funds paid out by CTCL (Center for Tech and Civic Life ie Zuckbucks) went to jurisdictions carried by Biden. If that is not outside influence peddling, what else do you call it?
As Thor Hearne, attorney for the Thomas More Society, explains:
“The Michigan Constitution guarantees every eligible citizen the right of equal protection when it comes to voting, and that means state officials may not put in place an election scheme that enhances the weight of votes cast by one class of voters or increases one favored class of voters’ access to the ballot. That’s just what happened here. Analysis of data that the Center for Tech and Civic Life provided to the Internal Revenue Service and other public records demonstrates that this scheme was designed to favor urban areas in Michigan and to disadvantage, Michigan voters in rural and suburban more politically conservative areas.”
A lawsuit was filed in Sep 2020 regarding this egregious private funding of the election, but the judge ruled that it was too close to the election to do anything about it though the claim had merit. Twice Benson tried to throw the lawsuit out but was denied. At her third attempt, it was dismissed on the basis that the election was now over, and the case was, therefore, moot.
Talk about a “catch-22”!!!
As Thor Hearne said when he recently filed a brief on Sep 6, 2022: “It cannot be that a private election funding scheme is immunized from judicial review both before and after the election.” The case is currently under appeal.
Supposedly, the CTCL grant money was necessary to purchase PPE equipment during covid. In fact, this money was funneled to local election offices in 47 states under the guise of alleviating the burden of COVID-19-related costs. However, an examination of financial statements shows that in Michigan and Wisconsin, there were “zero” purchases of PPE.
Covid was the cover. The takeover was the target, ie, election takeover and meddling.
There were what is called “clawback” provisions or strings attached to the grant money. Clerks had to follow orders as to how the election process was to be run or the money had to be returned.
As Mollie Hemingway said in her best selling book, “Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections”:
“It was a genius plan. And because no one ever imagined that a coordinated operation could pull off the privatization of the election system, laws were not built to combat it.”
