Tag: elections

Mississippi GOP Asks Cops To Investigate Potential ‘Vote Buying’ Schemes

The Mississippi Republican Party (MSGOP) is asking state and local law enforcement to investigate what it claims are potential vote-buying schemes ahead of upcoming municipal elections next month.

On Wednesday, MSGOP Chair Mike Hurst sent a letter to Mississippi Attorney General Lynn Fitch and Gulfport District Attorney W. Crosby Parker containing allegations of unlawful attempts to reward Gulfport residents for voting in the city’s June 3 elections. Specifically, Hurst alleged that “certain individuals, groups and campaigns appear to be directly and blatantly” violating state law that prohibits “any person [from offering] money or anything of substantial value to anyone for his vote.”

Individuals convicted for such actions “shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and upon conviction shall be fined not less than Fifty Dollars ($50.00) nor more than Five Hundred Dollars ($500.00), or imprisoned not more than six (6) months, or both,” according to the Mississippi Code.

Hurst claimed that on Monday evening, he was “made aware of at least two recent instances of what appear to be violations of the above statute.”

One of the alleged incidents flagged in the letter involves the purported distribution of “Souls to Polls Food Vouchers” by “certain individuals” in front of Gulfport City Hall, which Hurst noted is “where absentee voting in municipal elections are occurring.” According to the chairman, “These vouchers contain a picture of a ballot box with the word ‘vote’ on the front, specifically offering a ‘special prepared meal’ at a local Gulfport restaurant and are being handed out in front of Gulfport City Hall specifically after someone casts an absentee vote in the Gulfport municipal elections.”

“You will notice that these vouchers state that such meals are available ‘now through June 3’ —election day. A specific sign at that local Gulfport restaurant confirms the validity of the ‘Souls to the Polls’ vouchers and the specific exchange of things of value for votes,” wrote Hurst, who included photos of the alleged vouchers and restaurant sign in the letter (emphasis original).

The MSGOP chair also cited video footage — which The Federalist obtained — of what appears to be a woman sitting in a car handing out said vouchers to three individuals. Hurst claimed that this occurred “directly in front of Gulfport City Hall during operating hours of the City Clerk’s office, while absentee voting is occurring,” and that, “In one instance, when a woman handing out these vouchers was confronted by someone, she lied, first saying she didn’t know what the person was talking about, then saying she was simply watching voters for the Gulfport Democrat mayoral candidate.”

“Finally, the woman threatened the person asking questions by stating: ‘Don’t you be starting nothing!’” Hurst added.

The second alleged incident flagged by Hurst purportedly happened on Saturday, when “groups, individuals and even the Gulfport Democrat mayoral candidate’s campaign was sharing [a] flyer … entitled ‘Vote & Vibe Day Party,’ encouraging people to ‘meet at city hall 10 am’ where they would ‘vote together’ and then would ‘get your wristband after voting.’” The party chair claimed, “They were then invited to a local restaurant for free brunch by simply ‘show[ing] your wristband.’”

The letter links to social media posts by Democrat mayoral candidate Sonya Williams-Barnes sharing the flyer and touting the event to her Facebook followers. Williams-Barnes will face off against Republican Hugh Keating in the city’s June 3 elections.

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US lawmakers want Soros-linked Polish election ‘violations’ addressed

US lawmakers have called on the European Commission to address suspected election fraud in Poland, voicing concern over what they describe as a biased approach ahead of the country’s June 1 presidential runoff.

In a letter to Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Brian Mast and fellow members expressed “profound alarm” over developments “undermining the integrity of democratic processes” in Poland. The letter cited foreign-funded online campaigns backing liberal Warsaw Mayor Rafal Trzaskowski and the Polish government’s refusal to release public funds to the opposition Law and Justice (PiS) party.

The concerns centered on political ads favoring Trzaskowski, backed by Prime Minister Donald Tusk’s Civic Coalition, which were allegedly financed from abroad. Poland’s digital watchdog NASK earlier this month flagged paid Facebook ads that promoted Trzaskowski while targeting right-wing candidates Karol Nawrocki and Slawomir Mentzen.

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The Rise And Fall Of The West’s Propaganda Regime

Propaganda used to control Western democracies is running headlong into searchable facts freely available on the internet. As a result, the powerful cannot maintain their self-sustaining narratives and are behaving erratically and defensively, like bees when their nest is disturbed.

Opposition leaders in France, Romania, and Brazil have been barred from elections. They were accused of spreading “disinformation” and then prosecuted for unrelated crimes. In the United States, the same lawfare was attempted against President Trump, but he won anyway.

Sun Tzu’s first principle of war is “know the enemy,” but knowledge is difficult in an information war. Propaganda plants lies in every soul. In 1928, the father of modern public relations, Edward Bernay (who also happened to be the nephew of Sigmund Freud), wrote in his book Propaganda:

The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country. …We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of. This is a logical result of the way in which our democratic society is organized. Vast numbers of human beings must cooperate in this manner if they are to live together as a smoothly functioning society. …In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.

Propaganda works by contrasting two sides. Empathy for an opponent’s position is systematically removed by control of information. Public policy filtered through propaganda is always a binary choice.

In wartime, “us versus them” in a “kill or be killed” conflict provides the necessary binary, and propaganda writes itself. Domestic propaganda in peacetime is a bit trickier but works the same way: by staking out two sides.

Mass media permits distinct information sources. Elections award one side or the other with temporary political rule, but power is never actually surrendered. Each side simply acts as a fulcrum for the other side to pivot. Wedge issues inject urgency, but they are designed to produce a stalemate.

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Trump rolls out new tool to stop noncitizens from ‘hijacking’ U.S. elections

The Trump administration is unrolling a new initiative Thursday that will help prevent noncitizens from voting in U.S. elections, a high-priority policy for the White House.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is updating the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) program and partnering with the Social Security Administration in order to ensure “a single, reliable source for verifying immigration status and U.S. citizenship,” according to a memo exclusively shared with the Daily Caller News Foundation. Under the update, state and local officials will be able to input Social Security numbers for verification of U.S. citizenship and thereby prevent foreign nationals from voting in American elections.

“For years, states have pleaded for tools to help identify and stop aliens from hijacking our elections,” USCIS Spokesman Matthew Tragesser said in a statement provided to the DCNF.

“Under the leadership of President Trump and Secretary Noem, USCIS is moving quickly to eliminate voter fraud,” Tragesser continued. “We expect further improvements soon and remain committed to restoring trust in American elections.”

SAVE, an online service administered by USCIS, allows various government agencies to verify the immigration status or U.S. naturalization of applicants seeking benefits or licenses.

The new partnership allows government agencies to create cases in SAVE using an applicant’s Social Security number rather than a Department of Homeland Security identifying number, which is not collected by a majority of state and local agencies, according to a separate news release. Additionally, agencies for the first time will be able to submit more than one case at a time, streamlining the process.

Polling indicates that basic voter protection regulations, such as requiring a photo ID to vote and providing proof of citizenship when registering to vote for the first time, are incredibly popular among Americans.

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Georgia Elections: 74% VOTING SYSTEM ERROR- Saved By Hand Count!

In this VIDEO clip, DeKalb Board of Elections Attorney, Brent Herrin explains to the State Election Board that: “…TABULATING MACHINES WERE NOT ACCURATE. A decision by the board was made to do a HAND RECOUNT to ensure accurate results of the election,” Keisha Smith, DeKalb Elections Director, nods her head repeatedly in agreement. Duh! Isn’t that what we have been saying for 20+ years? Georgia’s Dominion voting system declared the wrong winners for the May 22, 2024 DeKalb Co. District 2 Commission primary. It only became known because a candidate received no votes in the precinct where she and her husband lived and voted. When she reported the problem to the DeKalb Election Board, they ordered a machine recount that produced the same results again. They then conducted a hand count of the race that proved the voting system shorted the candidate 3049 of her actual 4078 votes, over 74% of her total votes. The system gave 1456 of her votes to one of her opponents and failed to count another 1805 of her votes. The July 15, 2022 DeKalb Co. Election Board materials attributed the massive miscount to a complex ballot alignment error after one candidate withdrew from the race. However, no one has ever been willing to explain why the system failed to count 1805 votes.

So what really happened?

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DOGE Official Says They’ve Found Illegal Immigrants Who Have Voted in US Elections

A member of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) said in an interview this week that the task force has discovered illegal immigrants who have voted in U.S. elections.

“We have found [illegal immigrants] who actually voted … we already had three arrests in Florida and one indictment,” DOGE official Antonio Gracias, an investor who is worth about $2.2 billion and who also founded Valor Equity Partners, said on the podcast “All-In.”

Earlier this year, Gracias was tapped by DOGE and tech billionaire Elon Musk to look into Social Security records and other government data, Musk said in an event last month alongside Gracias. Musk currently serves as an adviser to President Donald Trump and has been the de facto head of DOGE, although his time in the government is limited by his status as a special government employee.

“Yes, this is actually true,” Gracias said on May 21, responding to a question about whether DOGE has discovered illegal immigrants who were registered to vote in U.S. elections. He cited DOGE’s efforts in sampling “a handful of states” and their voter rolls and noted that those records were cross-referenced with the Department of Homeland Security’s investigatory arm.

DOGE found that there were illegal immigrants “registered to vote” and that those “people have actually voted,” Gracias said.

Those people were able to register because they were given Social Security numbers, Gracias said.

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George Simion files a formal request with the Constitutional Court to annul the elections, accusing France and Moldova of electoral manipulation.

George Simion, presidential candidate and vice president of the European Conservatives and Reformists (ECR) Party, has filed a formal petition with Romania’s Constitutional Court to annul the May 2025 presidential elections, citing massive foreign interference that he claims compromised the sovereign will of the Romanian people.

Simion, who secured the support of more than 5.3 million voters in an extremely tight race, shared an exclusive press release directly with Gateway Hispanic, detailing allegations of electoral manipulation.

In this document, the patriotic leader denounces the intervention of both state and non-state actors—primarily from France and Moldova—in a coordinated effort to manipulate institutions, control media narratives, and impose an electoral outcome that does not reflect the people’s will.

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Former Florida congressional candidate sentenced to prison for threatening to kill opponent

A former Florida congressional candidate was sentenced to three years in prison on Wednesday for threatening to kill his opponent in a primary race in 2021.

William Robert Braddock III, 41, of St. Petersburg, was sentenced in Tampa federal court after being charged with interstate transmission of threat to injure. He pleaded guilty in February.

According to court documents, Braddock viewed Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), who was the Republican frontrunner in Florida’s 13th Congressional District, as “his only obstacle to winning that race.”

While campaigning, Braddock, a former Marine, would disparage Luna and her peers to inject himself into his life. During a 2021 phone call with Luna’s acquaintance, a private citizen, Braddock threatened to have Luna murdered if she continued to poll well, specifically to “call up my Russian-Ukrainian hit squad” and make her “disappear,” according to a release from the Department of Justice (DOJ). 

Braddock subsequently fled to Thailand and eventually settled in the Philippines.

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Fox News Notches Big Win Against Smartmatic as Appeals Court Grants Access to Damning Insider Info

Fox News lawyers fighting off a defamation lawsuit from Smartmatic Voting Systems have been granted access to new ammunition.

Last week, Fox was granted access to materials connected with a 2024 federal bribery indictment concerning company co-founder and president Roger Piñate and other company executives, according to The Wrap.

The Justice Department has alleged that more than $1 million in bribes went from company executives to a Philippine official in an attempt to influence which voting machines were used in the nation’s 2016 elections, according to a Justice Department news release.

Those charged have pleaded not guilty.

Fox claimed that the charges are relevant to its defense because Smartmatic was suffering for reasons other than Fox’s coverage of the 2020 election, according to The Wrap.

“We are pleased with the Court’s ruling that materials about Smartmatic executives’ indictments are ‘plainly relevant’ to its lack of damages. The factual evidence shows that Smartmatic’s business and reputation were badly suffering long before any claims by President Trump’s lawyers on Fox News,” Fox said in a statement.

In a separate filing calling for summary judgment in its favor, Fox argued that Smartmatic’s sales had “cratered” before the 2020 election.

Fox  sought to undercut Smartmatic’s claim that it was damaged by saying that the company’s books show “no profit record to serve as a basis for projecting millions of dollars in future profits.”

Smartmatic fired back against Fox News in a separate filing, according to CNN.

The company alleged in court documents that Fox “orchestrated the destruction of text messages across all levels of their corporate hierarchy … despite a clear duty to preserve evidence.”

Smartmatic claimed Rupert Murdoch and his son Lachlan Murdoch “deleted their texts” in an “extensive and willful” fashion.

Fox said the allegation was a “desperate attempt to distract” from the ruling in Fox’s favor.

“Smartmatic weakly attempts to resurrect stale, baseless discovery issues that actually were disclosed by Fox and resolved two years ago,” a Fox representative said.

“These issues have no bearing on the merits of Smartmatic’s case, which has fallen apart at every turn,” the Fox representative said.

As noted by The Wrap. Smartmatic is seeking $2.7 billion from Fox.

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Federal Judge Blocks Voter-Approved Oregon Law Requiring Marijuana Businesses To Have Labor Peace Agreements With Workers

A federal judge has struck down a voter-approved Oregon law that required licensed marijuana businesses enter into labor peace agreements with workers and mandated that employers remain neutral in discussions around unionization.

About three months after two marijuana businesses—Bubble’s Hash and Ascend Dispensary—filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon challenging the implementation of Measure 119, Judge Michael Simon on Tuesday ruled in favor of the plaintiffs, agreeing that the law unconstitutionally restricts free speech and violates the federal National Labor Relations Act (NLRA).

Under the now defunct law, a marijuana businesses that was unable to provide proof of a labor peace agreement could have been subject a denial or revocation of their license.

The lawsuit named Gov. Tina Kotek (D), Attorney General Dan Rayfield (D) and Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission’s (OLCC) Dennis Doherty and Craig Prins as defendants.

In the order on Tuesday, the judge walked through various components of the legal arguments from both sides and ultimately agreed that the Oregon law is preempted by the NLRA, which is meant to provide protections for workers who want to unionize—but specifically preserves the right for “uninhibited, robust, and wide-open debate in labor disputes.”

By mandating neutrality from employers in labor discussions, that constitutes a violation of the NLRA, the judge ruled.

“Measure 119 does not distinguish between permissible employer speech and threatening or coercive speech,” Simon said. “Measure 119 is not limited to restricting only threatening, coercive, false, or misleading speech, but instead prohibits all speech by employers that is not ‘neutral’ toward unionization.”

On the question of whether the law violates First Amendment protections under the U.S. Constitution, the cannabis companies argued that “Measure 119 is a content-based restriction on speech that is subject to strict scrutiny, and that Defendants fail to provide a compelling government interest requiring this restriction.”

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