{"id":1557238,"date":"2022-07-16T06:00:26","date_gmt":"2022-07-16T10:00:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1557238"},"modified":"2022-07-16T06:19:42","modified_gmt":"2022-07-16T10:19:42","slug":"so-called-voter-registration-nonprofits-are-a-partisan-political-weapon-for-democrats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/so-called-voter-registration-nonprofits-are-a-partisan-political-weapon-for-democrats\/","title":{"rendered":"So-Called \u201cVoter Registration\u201d Nonprofits Are a Partisan Political Weapon for Democrats"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fso-called-voter-registration-nonprofits-are-a-partisan-political-weapon-for-democrats%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1557238&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Every election cycle it\u2019s the same story. Massive liberal foundations pour tens of millions of dollars into tax-exempt groups to turn out the Democratic vote. They call it \u201cphilanthropy, but no one really believes that? It\u2019s certainly not for funding soup kitchens and libraries. As a secret memo reveals, not even leftists buy the \u201cphilanthropy\u201d disguise.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.influencewatch.org\/political-party\/mind-the-gap\/\">Mind the Gap<\/a> is a little-known super PAC based in Palo Alto, California. According to a secret <a href=\"https:\/\/capitalresearch.org\/app\/uploads\/Mind-The-Gap-Internal-memo.pdf\">internal briefing<\/a> from 2019, Mind the Gap was created in 2018 to flip the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives blue.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn 2018, we managed to stay out of the news and as far as we know out of Republicans\u2019 sightlines through the entire cycle,\u201d the group boasts.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>But the magnitude of our efforts, the details of targeting, and the names of the organizations we are recommending, would be of great interest to [Republicans]. If that information becomes public, it would make MTG [Mind the Gap] and the donee organizations targets for Republicans.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>We\u2019ve traced five-figure and six-figure contributions from Karla Jurvetson, ex-wife of venture capitalist and SpaceX board member Steve Jurvetson; venture capitalist Russell Siegelman; former Google executive Shona Brown; and Sue Mandel, wife of hedge fund manager Stephen Mandel, among others.<\/p>\n<p>But Mind the Gap\u2019s real value to the Left is its influence over deep-pocketed Silicon Valley donors.<\/p>\n<p>Super PACs are barred from giving directly to the campaigns of political candidates. Instead, the group convinced some 800 donors to each give the maximum contribution ($2,700) to 20 House races, raising some $11 million for Democratic candidates. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.vox.com\/recode\/2020\/1\/6\/21046631\/mind-the-gap-silicon-valley-democratic-donors-stanford\">Half of them<\/a> won their race. As the group explains,<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>We in effect operate as <em>pro bono <\/em>donor advisers to a growing network of donors who are willing to give significant amounts to Democratic politics, but only if they have confidence in the efficacy of their investments.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p><strong>Partisan Voter Registration<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>That strategy apparently extends to the $9 million that Mind the Gap steered toward groups conducting targeted voter registration and get-out-the-vote (GOTV) in the 2018 election\u2019s \u201c100 most competitive House races.\u201d The group planned to direct a whopping $70\u2013$100 million to voter registration efforts in 2020. As of the 2019 memo, it had already raised $35 million for the job. How much it ultimately raised remains a mystery.<\/p>\n<p>The IRS permits 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4) nonprofits to conduct <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irs.gov\/charities-non-profits\/charitable-organizations\/the-restriction-of-political-campaign-intervention-by-section-501c3-tax-exempt-organizations\">nonpartisan<\/a> voter registration drives, but not registration drives that have the <em>effect<\/em> of favoring one party over another.<\/p>\n<p>Yet the groups listed in the briefing are overtly partisan, operating \u201cin areas with nested critical races [where] each additional Democratic vote will help elect Democrats in two or more critical races for the price of one.\u201d Mind the Gap and its donors believe the only limit is how much cash they can raise for the job.<\/p>\n<p>We know of a few of these GOTV groups: the (c)(3) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.influencewatch.org\/non-profit\/voter-participation-center\/\">Voter Participation Center<\/a> (VPC) and (c)(4) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.influencewatch.org\/non-profit\/center-for-voter-information\/\">Center for Voter Information<\/a> (CVI)\u2014\u201csister\u201d groups created by ex-Clinton administration staffer <a href=\"https:\/\/www.influencewatch.org\/person\/page-gardner\/\">Page Gardner<\/a>. According to Mind the Gap, \u201cthe money donated to both organizations . . . will target minority populations in geographic areas crucial to victory in the [2020] Presidential election and key down-ballot races.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>This isn\u2019t the first-time leftists have revealed the Gardner groups\u2019 partisanship. Journalist Sasha Issenberg wrote of the Voter Participation Center in his 2012 book <a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Victory-Lab-Science-Winning-Campaigns\/dp\/0307954803\"><em>The Victory Lab: The Secret Science of Winning Campaigns<\/em><\/a>: \u201cEven though the group was officially nonpartisan, for tax purposes,\u00a0<strong>there was no secret that the goal of all its efforts was to generate new votes for Democrats\u201d<\/strong> (emphasis added).<\/p>\n<p>Both groups were also featured in <em>Time<\/em>\u2019s infamous February 2021 article, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/5936036\/secret-2020-election-campaign\/\">The Secret History of the Shadow Campaign That Saved the 2020 Election<\/a>,\u201d by Molly Ball. In it, she glowingly detailed a \u201cconspiracy\u201d of a \u201cwell-funded cabal of powerful people . . . working together behind the scenes to influence perceptions, change rules and laws, steer media coverage and control the flow of information.\u201d Ball quoted VPC president Tom Lopach on the amazing claim that America has been undemocratic for nearly two decades: \u201cAll the work we have done for 17 years was built for this moment of bringing democracy to people\u2019s doorsteps.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>In 2020, VPC and CVI mailed 15 million voter registration applications \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/5936036\/secret-2020-election-campaign\/\">in key states<\/a>,\u201d nearly 5 million of whom returned filled-in copies. VPC unabashedly targets the so-called New American Majority, which it <a href=\"https:\/\/www.voterparticipation.org\/\">defines<\/a> as \u201cyoung people, people of color and unmarried women\u201d (read: likely Democratic voters).<\/p>\n<p>VPC and CVI were active in Virginia\u2019s 2021 gubernatorial race, according to a secret <a href=\"https:\/\/capitalresearch.org\/app\/uploads\/VPC-CVI-Virginia-Absentee-Ballots-Email-redacted.pdf\">internal briefing<\/a> obtained by the Capital Research Center last year. That memo revealed VPC\u2019s plans to send more than <a href=\"https:\/\/capitalresearch.org\/article\/watch-out-virginia-another-flood-of-mail-in-ballot-mailers-headed-your-way\/\">2 million<\/a> mail-in ballot applications to Virginia\u2019s 134 counties and cities. At the top of the list was Fairfax County, a populous Democratic stronghold. VPC sent applications to 419,107 voters in Fairfax, almost the exact margin (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/2020-election\/results\/virginia\/\">419,943<\/a>) of Joe Biden\u2019s 2020 victory in Virginia and his largest net across the commonwealth.<\/p>\n<p>(Of course, if the goal was to help return Democrat Terry McAuliffe to the governor\u2019s mansion, it failed, and Republican Glenn Youngkin won the race.)<\/p>\n<p><strong>Everybody Votes . . . Democratic<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Also mentioned in the memo is Everybody Votes, a.k.a. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.influencewatch.org\/non-profit\/voter-registration-project\/\">Voter Registration Project<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The memo describes Everybody Votes as \u201ca national organization that funds and trains a consortium of 50+ local community groups across the country that do the actual registration work.\u201d But Everybody Votes doesn\u2019t actually exist, at least under that name.<\/p>\n<p>In 2021, Capital Research <a href=\"https:\/\/capitalresearch.org\/app\/uploads\/Capital-Research-2021-7.pdf\">was the first to expose<\/a> (see p. 13) that Everybody Votes is a pseudonym for the Voter Registration Project (VRP), a seemingly ordinary nonprofit secretly spent 2016 to 2020 carrying out a $100 million, five-year plan known as the Everybody Votes Campaign with the help of a host of eight-figure left-wing donors. Researchers uncovered evidence that the campaign was launched in 2016 at the specific request of John Podesta, chairman of the Clinton campaign, who became enamored with the idea after it was pitched to him by representatives of the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.influencewatch.org\/person\/hansjorg-wyss\/\">Wyss Foundation<\/a>, the private foundation of Swiss billionaire, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.influencewatch.org\/person\/hansjorg-wyss\/\">Hansj\u00f6rg Wyss<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The idea was to target eight states, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, and Nevada. Over five years $106 million of funding could pay for an estimated 6.3 million new voter registrations, leading to about 2.2 million net additional votes in 2020. From 2016 to 2020, VRP and its sister nonprofits, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.influencewatch.org\/non-profit\/voter-registration-project-education-fund\/\">Voter Registration Project Education Fund<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.influencewatch.org\/non-profit\/register-america\/\">Register America<\/a>, raised over $150 million in combined contributions and distributed nearly every penny to activist groups exclusively in these states to pay for voter registration.<\/p>\n<p>It was purely coincidental, of course, that these were important swing states whose historical margins of victory would all have been closed by 2.2 million votes spread out among them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEverybody Votes\u201d also doesn\u2019t mean <em>everybody<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>The Everybody Votes Campaign executive summary opens by describing how it was specifically targeting \u201cconstituencies including African Americans, Latinos, unmarried women, and young people\u201d\u2014all key Democratic constituencies. They insist that these communities were chosen simply because they are \u201cunderrepresented.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Surely those particular groups weren\u2019t picked for any ulterior reason.<\/p>\n<p><strong>They\u2019re Telling Us Who They Are. We Should Believe Them.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Mind the Gap memo shows a Democratic Super PACs advising its donors that the best way to influence elections in a partisan manner is to give generously to groups that are forbidden from being partisan and from influencing elections. That seems to be a pretty clear a sign that something is seriously wrong.<\/p>\n<p>Donors to these schemes are also not getting ripped off by partisan wolves in nonpartisan sheep\u2019s clothing. They very much intend to feed the wolves. For example, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.influencewatch.org\/non-profit\/san-francisco-foundation\/\">San Francisco Foundation<\/a> was bold enough to <a href=\"https:\/\/projects.propublica.org\/nonprofits\/organizations\/10679337\/202141369349301959\/IRS990ScheduleI\">describe its grant to the VRP<\/a> as \u201cIn support of Everybody Votes for MTG-related voter registration work,\u201d which means the anonymous donor behind the grant read the memo and wanted to fund its obviously partisan purposes.<\/p>\n<p>These abuses of 501(c)(3) status are an open secret on the Left, meanwhile donors on the Right, mindful of the Lois Lerner scandal, would be scared to do the same with a 501(c)(4).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Every election cycle it\u2019s the same story. Massive liberal foundations pour tens of millions of dollars into tax-exempt groups to turn out the Democratic vote. They call it \u201cphilanthropy, but<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1573954,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1557238","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1557238","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1557238"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1557238\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1573954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1557238"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1557238"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1557238"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}