For a case study in how conservative political operatives have weaponized voter suppression to their electoral advantage, take the "Election Integrity Network", or EIN.

EIN is an arm of the State Policy Network and the Conservative Partnership Institute, or CPI,
which claims to want to “make it harder to cheat” at the ballot box.

In reality, EIN is an organized network of voter suppression activists and conspiracy theorists who seek to surgically, meticulously, and cunningly dismantle the electoral process.

Led by former Trump lawyer and vocal election conspiracy theorist #Cleta #Mitchell, the EIN recruits activists at the state level and trains them to target the registrations of potentially left-leaning voters in an effort to tilt the balance of the electorate toward conservative-leaning voters.  

If Mitchell isn’t exactly a household name, that’s because her network conducts most of its activities behind the scenes, unlike its CPI contemporaries such as the "Center for Renewing America" and "America First Legal".

To accomplish its mission, EIN relies on claims of widespread voter fraud, a phantasmal canard that has been roundly debunked.

While there are some federal policies that EIN opposes, such as the popular pro-democracy For the People Act,
it focuses its work on the state level, collaborating with friendly state legislators, conducting robust opposition research, and coordinating messaging campaigns to undermine public trust in the integrity of elections. 

EIN has chapters across the country that are working tirelessly to alter Americans’ perception of the vote.

The group aims to convince the public that elections are not secure (they are),
that there is widespread voter fraud (there is not),
and that only certain groups of people should vote.

What’s most terrifying is that they are finding some success...
https://newrepublic.com/article/187181/cleta-mitchell-voter-suppression-2024?utm_source=flipboard&utm_content=thenewrepublic/magazine/The+New+Republic

Right-Wing Activists Pushed False Claims About Election Fraud.

-- Now They’re Recruiting Poll Workers in Swing States.

The Republican and Democratic parties have historically recruited poll workers,
and almost every state legally requires some amount of partisan balance.

Ahead of 2024, Republicans have accused officials in five Michigan and Wisconsin cities of unfairly overlooking their nominees and overstaffing polling places with Democrats.

The challenges in Flint, Michigan, and Madison, Wisconsin, were dismissed (one by a court, the other by the Wisconsin Elections Commission),
and Republican applicants in some places have since filed the required paperwork and signed up; other challenges are ongoing.

What’s newer is groups outside the parties making concerted efforts to recruit poll workers themselves.

The Election Integrity Network, founded by #Cleta #Mitchell, a former lawyer for ex-President Donald Trump, began enlisting poll workers during the 2022 midterms.

Now, more groups have joined it.

These include True the Vote, whose claims formed the basis of the widely debunked and eventually retracted film “2000 Mules,” which claimed to show election fraud,

and The Lion of Judah, a group aspiring to be the “Christian version of the NRA” that is traveling to swing states with #Lance #Wallnau to recruit conservative Christian poll workers.

Late last month, Trump’s vice presidential nominee, JD #Vance, lent Wallnau’s efforts credibility by appearing at a tour stop in Pennsylvania.

It is unknown how many poll workers these groups have recruited, in part because they aren’t saying and in part because election offices don’t ask people about their motivation.

https://www.propublica.org/article/poll-worker-recruitment-swing-states-true-the-vote-lion-of-judah

Georgia’s GOP-controlled #State #Election #Board is poised to adopt a rule on Monday that would give county election board members
an additional avenue to delay certification of election results, potentially allowing them to throw the state’s vote count into chaos this fall.

A former Fulton County election official who submitted an initial draft of the rule told ProPublica that she had done so at the behest of a regional leader of a right-wing organization involved in challenging the legitimacy of American election systems. That organization, the "Election Integrity Network", is led by #Cleta #Mitchell, who helped orchestrate attempts to overturn the 2020 election
and spoke on the call in which former President Donald Trump demanded that Georgia’s secretary of state “find” him 11,780 votes to undo Joe Biden’s victory.

The Election Integrity Network’s role in bringing forward the proposed rule has not been previously reported.

The State Election Board’s Monday meeting comes on the heels of a vote less than two weeks before that empowered county election board members to conduct “reasonable inquiry” into allegations of voting irregularities.

That rule did not set deadlines for how long such inquiries might last or describe what they might entail,
and critics worried that this omission could cause Georgia to miss the Dec. 11 deadline for sending its certified presidential election results to the federal government.

https://www.propublica.org/article/georgia-election-board-vote-certification

The Conservative Partnership Institute,
a nonprofit whose funding skyrocketed after it became a nerve center for President Donald J. Trump’s allies in Washington,
has paid at least $3.2 million since the start of 2021 to corporations led by its own leaders or their relatives, records show.

In its most recent tax filings, the nonprofit’s three highest-paid contractors were all connected to insiders.

One was led by the institute’s president, #Edward #Corrigan,
and another by its chief operating officer.
At a third contractor, the board members included the group’s senior legal fellow #Cleta #Mitchell, a lawyer who supported Mr. Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election.

The Conservative Partnership Institute applied to the Internal Revenue Service as a tax-exempt nonprofit, and the agency approved.
That means donations to the group are tax deductible, like gifts to a food bank or the American Red Cross.
It also means that, by law, its money must serve the public good rather than private interests.
The nonprofit has pushed those limits by entwining itself with only one faction of American politics.
It pays high salaries to some of Mr. Trump’s former officials, hosts retreats for Republican lawmakers at a rural compound and funds efforts to vet people and ideas for a second Trump term.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/06/us/politics/trump-conservative-partnership-institute-funds.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare