From True the Vote:
TRUE THE VOTE FILES SUIT AGAINST MISSISSIPPI, STATE REPUBLICAN PARTY
True the Vote (TTV), the nation's leading voters’ rights and election integrity organization, today filed suit in federal court against the Mississippi Secretary of State and the State Republican Party, asking the Court to immediately order that election records be shared to inspect for illegal votes ahead of certification for the June 24 U.S. Senate Primary Runoff Election (True the Vote, et. al v. State of Mississippi, et. al. (3:14cv144-MPM-SAA).
True the Vote and associated plaintiffs argue that the defendants failed to properly abide by federal election record maintenance and open records provisions codified in the National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA). Records made partially available to the plaintiffs indicated “double-voting” from Democratic to Republican primaries -- potentially diluting votes in violation of the Equal Protection Clause.
"All we are asking is that the MS State Republican Party follow the law; allow their designated county representatives to inspect the poll books and ballots, give them the review time they are permitted by law, and allow them to uphold their responsibility to MS voters," True the Vote President Catherine Engelbrecht said. "True the Vote has been inundated with reports from voters across Mississippi who are outraged to see the integrity of this election being undermined so that politicos can get back to business as usual. Enough is enough.”
“This isn't about personality, party, or politics. Senators come and go,” Engelbrecht continued. “What must withstand the test of time is the integrity of the process by which we elect our representatives and establish our government. No candidate or party should ever be allowed to twist election laws or subvert voters’ rights in the interest of political ambition.”
True the Vote has closely followed developments surrounding the Mississippi Republican Primary Runoff from the beginning. On June 21, TTV released figures demonstrating unusual voter turnout patterns based on historic data. On June 25, the organization formally requested that MS Republican Party Chairman Joe Nosef delay certification of the election and share voting records for independent review. Finding no assistance from the state party, TTV and the collected 13 plaintiffs were left no option but to pursue the matter in federal court.
The suit is filed against the Mississippi Secretary of State because that is the State body that oversees elections. No wonder that in 2006, the progressives founded the Secretary of State Project.
From the wonderful Discover the Networks:
SECRETARY OF STATE PROJECT (SOSP)
The Secretary of State Project (SoSP) was established in July 2006 as an independent “527” organization devoted to helping Democrats get elected to the office of secretary-of-state in selected swing, or battleground, states; these were states where the margin of victory in the 2004 presidential election (between George W. Bush and John Kerry) had been 120,000 votes or less.1 One of the principal duties of the secretary of state is to serve as the chief election officer who certifies candidates as well as election results in his or her state.2 The holder of this office, then, can potentially play a key role in determining the winner of a close election.
SoSP's co-founders were Becky Bond (who also had affiliations with the New Organizing Institute and Working Assets); Democracy Alliance member Michael Kieschnick (who also founded Working Assets and serves as a board member of the leftist evangelical group Sojourners); and James Rucker (who co-founded Color of Change and formerly served as director of grassroots mobilization for MoveOn.org Political Action and Moveon.org Civic Action).
The idea for SoSP germinated shortly after the 2004 election,3 when the Project's co-founders blamed then-Ohio secretary of state Kenneth Blackwell, a Republican, for presidential candidate John Kerry’s defeat. To their chagrin, Blackwell had ruled that Ohio (where George W. Bush won by a relatively slim 118,599-vote margin)4 would not count provisional ballots,5 even those submitted by properly registered voters, if they had been submitted at the wrong precincts. Though the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 6th Circuit ultimately upheld Blackwell’s decision, SoSP’s founding members nonetheless received Blackwell's ruling with the same bitterness they had felt regarding former Florida (Republican) secretary of state Katherine Harris’s handling of the infamous ballot recount in 2000, when Bush defeated Al Gore in the presidential election. Wrote political analyst Matthew Vadum, SoSP’s leaders and foot soldiers alike “religiously believe that right-leaning secretaries of state helped the GOP steal the presidential elections in Florida in 2000 ... and in Ohio in 2004.”6
Moreover, in 2006 SoSP accused Blackwell and Republicans of conspiring to suppress Democratic voter turnout in Ohio.7 “We were tired of Republican manipulation of elections,” said Michael Kieschnick. “It seemed like lots of decisions were made by people who were pretty clearly political operatives.”8 “Any serious commitment to wrestling control of the country from the Republican Party must include removing their political operatives from deciding who can vote and whose votes will count,” added Becky Bond.9 As Matthew Vadum pointed out, Bond's statement was a paraphrase of Joseph Stalin's aphorism: "The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything."
To establish “election protection” against similar disappointments in subsequent political races, SoSP in 2006 targeted its funding efforts on the secretary-of-state races in seven swing states: Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, and Ohio.10 As USA Today reported at the time: “The political battle for control of the federal government has opened up a new front: the obscure but vital state offices that determine who votes and how those votes are counted.”11 Democrats emerged victorious in five of those seven elections, all except Colorado and Michigan. Politico.com would later characterize SoSP as “an administrative firewall” designed, “in anticipation of a photo-finish presidential election,” to protect Democrats' “electoral interests in … the most important battleground states.”12
Because few Americans recognize the importance of the secretary of state’s duties, candidates for that office tend to draw fewer (and smaller) donations than do most state-level campaigns. Consequently, even a modest injection of cash from just a handful of generous donors can make an enormous difference in the comparative financial resources of rival campaigns, and thereby tip the scales decidedly in favor of the better-funded candidate. Among the more notable contributors to SoSP were Democracy Alliance members Anne Bartley, Patricia Bauman, Susie Tompkins Buell, Gail Furman, Tim Gill, Nicholas Hanauer, Blair Hull, Megan Hull, John R. Hunting, Michael Kieschnick, Barbara Lee (not the congresswoman), Rob McKay, Sanford Newman, Drummond Pike, William J. Roberts, Paul Rudd, George Soros, Rob Stein, Pat Stryker, and Scott Wallace.13
The footnotes go to corroborating links at the site. Why could they want to spend time and money on this if it was not for voter fraud.
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