Former Astronaut Mark Kelly, AZ Democratic Senate Candidate and China

Primer: With U.S.-China relations taking on increasing importance in all spheres of life — economic, geopolitical, cultural — it becomes vital to enhance the dialogue between our countries and build lasting, direct, and informative ties between our peoples. The Young Leaders Forum (YLF), now in its second decade, does just that.

Each year, YLF holds a four-day retreat to which a select group of exceptional American and Chinese young professionals are invited. Together, participants explore substantive issues, identify commonalities, and develop enduring friendships and partnerships in a casual, intimate environment.

Comprised of influencers and change-makers, the accomplished group of YLF fellows works in a variety of fields. Fellows include government officials and politicians, authors, university leaders, entrepreneurs, and musicians and artists. Attention is given to geographic, gender, and ethnic diversity. An alphabetical listing of all YLF participants since the program’s inception has been posted on the right side of this page.

The Forum’s location alternates each year between the United States and China. Each Forum is packed with interesting, provocative cross-cultural conversation and activity.

The National Committee, the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs (CPIFA), and the Forum’s U.S. sponsors—led in 2019 by Chubb and Xcoal—cover all lodging, food, and program costs of the YLF retreat for the first two years of our fellows’ participation, allowing them to attend one Forum in the United States and one in China. Participants are asked to pay their own travel expenses to and from the venue, but some full or partial subsidies are available.

And maybe there are some others that we need to question on membership or participation:

George Stephanopoulos moderates a national webcast discussion on U.S.-China relations with experts Stephen Orlins, Melanie Hart, Yasheng Huang, and Ely Ratner. The panelists address a range of current topics, from the trade war to protests in Hong Kong, from visa restrictions to the NBA. This webcast is part of the thirteenth annual CHINA Town Hall, held at 80+ venues across the United States and China on November 18, 2019.

(someone be sure that the Republican Senator Martha McSally knows the details)

Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly

Yuichiro Kakutani – September 28, 2020 5:00 AM

FB: The Chinese government invited then-astronaut Mark Kelly, now an Arizona Democratic Senate candidate, to an all-expenses-paid retreat at a countryside resort in 2003. He left China five days later not only with a future spouse, former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D., Ariz.), but also with lucrative regime business contacts.

Kelly attended the annual Young Leaders Forum, a five-day junket cohosted by the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs, which is “under the leadership of the Communist Party of China.” The conference allowed Kelly an opportunity to mingle with high-profile Communist Party officials and rising stars in Chinese society. Attendees included Cui Tiankai, now Chinese ambassador to the United States; Fang Xinghai, former director of the CCP’s top committee on the economy; and Zhou Mingwei, the party’s former top foreign propaganda honcho.

China analyst Gordon G. Chang said that party connections—such as those Kelly fostered—are “absolutely essential” for securing Chinese business deals.

“The Communist Party tries to control everything, whether it’s a state enterprise or a private company,” he said. “And so it’s extremely important to have Communist Party contacts [to do business].”

Kelly has also had extensive ties with China since becoming a civilian. World View Enterprise, an aerospace company he cofounded and in which he still holds investments, received funding from Chinese tech giant Tencent, which censors the internet for Beijing. As the Washington Free Beacon reported, he also held a financial stake in a Colorado company that courted investments from a Chinese state-funded tech enterprise.

He now has assets worth up to $27 million, according to his financial disclosure.

A Kelly campaign spokesman said that the former aviator’s participation was “coordinated by NASA,” but did not answer questions about whether the Democrat used any of the contacts he met on the YLF trip for his business ventures. Instead, the campaign said that prominent Republicans also participated in the campaign.

Kelly and Giffords told multiple media outlets that they met during the Young Leaders Forum, without mentioning the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs. The retreat took place in a luxury hotel in the scenic Chinese countryside, where attendees went on pleasure cruise rides in between their panel discussions. Kelly gave a one-hour speech about his space experience, while Giffords participated in a panel discussion with Chinese politicos.

Kelly would participate in the 2004 and 2005 conferences as well. He called the experience “one of the absolute highlights of my life, second only to flying in space,” and even took a Forum banner into space in 2006.

Kelly’s campaign has been trying to deflect concerns about the candidate’s business ties by emphasizing his military service and calling China a “threat to American interests.” Nevertheless, they have remained contentious in the race, with Republicans spending millions on ads accusing him of dependence on China. He holds a 5.5 point lead against Republican incumbent Martha McSally, according to RealClearPolitics.

My Car is Full of Absentee Ballots

Primer: President Trump called on the U.S. attorney in Minnesota to investigate a report of alleged illegal ballot harvesting by supporters of Rep. Ilhan Omar in Minnesota.

Project Veritas, an investigative reporting project that uses undercover journalists, released a report on Sunday night that claimed Omar’s supporters in Minneapolis were illegally collecting blank ballots and bragging about it on social media. Trump condemned the actions depicted in the video in a tweet posted on Sunday night.

“This is totally illegal. Hope that the U.S. Attorney in Minnesota has this, and other of her many misdeeds, under serious review??? If not, why not??? We will win Minnesota because of her, and law enforcement. Saved Minneapolis & Iron O Range!” Trump wrote.

The report focuses on ballot harvesting, a practice Trump and other Republicans have condemned for years. Ballot harvesting is when a third party, often volunteers or campaign staff, collects ballots directly from the homes of voters to deliver them to polling stations. The third-party harvesters can be paid hourly for their work.

Most states that allow voters to have a third party deliver their ballots have a limit on the number of ballots that can be collected by an individual. California is the exception, which allows unlimited ballot collection so long as the harvesters are paid hourly and not per ballot. Full article here.

ProjectVeritas:

  • Ballot Harvester Liban Mohamed: “Money is Everything. Money is the King in this World. If You Got No Money, You Should Not Be Here, Period. You Know What I am Saying? Money is Everything and a Campaign is Managed By Money.”
  • Mohamed: “Numbers Do Not Lie. Numbers Do Not Lie. You Can See My Car is Full. All These Here Are Absentee Ballots. Can’t You See? Look at All These, My Car is Full.”
  • Paid Voter: “When We Sign The Voting Document and They Fill It Out Is When They Give Us The Money,”… “The Minute We Signed The Thing [Ballot] For The Election. That’s When We Get paid.”
  • Ballot Harvesting Triangle: River Plaza Apartments, Horn Towers seniors Community and 980 Hennepin Polling Site All Subject to Fraud
  • Minneapolis Somali Community Insider: “It’s an Open Secret” … “She [Ilhan Omar] Will Do Anything That She Can Do To Get Elected and She [Omar] Has Hundreds of People on The Streets Doing That.”
  • Seniors at Horn Towers Ballots Compromised; Harvester: We “Request” Ballots For The Seniors and Then Take Them Away.

[Minneapolis–Sept. 27, 2020] Project Veritas investigators revealed a ballot harvesting scheme here involving clan and political allies and associates of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D.-Minn.) in the first of a series of reports.

***

“Numbers don’t lie. Numbers don’t lie. You can see my car is full. All these here are absentees’ ballots. Can’t you see? Look at all these, my car is full. All these are for Jamal Osman… We got 300 today for Jamal Osman only,” said Liban Mohamed in a series of Snapchat videos posted July 1 and July 2 on his own Snapchat profile.

Mohamed said he was collecting the ballots to help his brother win the city’s Aug. 11 special election for a vacant Ward 6 city council race—which was held the same day as the primary for Omar’s MN-05 congressional seat. Ward 6 is the heart of the city’s Somali community and the Omar’s political base.

James O’Keefe, the founder and CEO of Project Veritas, said: “Ballot harvesting is real and it has become a big business. Our investigation into this ballot harvesting ring demonstrates clearly how these unscrupulous operators exploit the elderly and immigrant communities—and have turned the sacred ballot box into a commodities trading desk.”

O’Keefe said, “We are showing Americans what is really going on in one of our great cities—but, it’s not me saying—we have the operators on tape saying it all themselves.”

Our investigation found that among three locations inside Ward 6, a ballot harvesting triangle, where the scheme operates: the Riverside Plaza apartments, the senior citizen community at Horn Towers and the Minneapolis Elections and Voter Services office at 980 E. Hennepin Ave., which also functions as a voting location and ballot drop-off site.

Mohamed continued: “Money is everything. Money is the king in this world. If you got no money, you should not be here period. You know what I am saying.”

***

Mohamed said that his political methods are interwoven with money. “Money is everything and a campaign is managed by money. You cannot campaign with $200 or $100 you got from your grandmother or grandfather. You cannot campaign with that. You gotta have an investment to campaign. You gotta have fundraisers.”

Hennepin County Attorney Jeff Wojciechowski told a Project Veritas journalist on a recorded line the ballot harvesting conduct described to him was: “Illegal, and we will be investigating.”

Somali insider stepped forward to expose election corruption in Minneapolis

Central to the Project Veritas investigation was Omar Jamal, political insider active in the city’s Somali community. Jamal works with the Ramsey County Sheriff Department and is the chairman of the Somali Watchdog Group. “I have been involved in the community for the last 20 years.”

***

“Omar Jamal is the latest brave Project Veritas Insider to come forward and expose a voter fraud scheme in Minnesota that will shock you,” said O’Keefe. “When we spoke with Omar Jamal, he actually repeated part of our PV Insider motto: ‘Do Something.’”

Jamal said he was motivated to reach out to Project Veritas, because he wants to eliminate the corruption that weakens his community, such as the ballot harvesting practiced by Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, in which Ilhan Omar has emerged as a rising power broker.

“It’s an open secret,” he said. “she [Omar] will do anything that she can do to get elected and she has hundreds of people on the streets doing that.”

The political insider said he hopes there is still time to clean up elections in the country.

“If American people don’t pay attention to what’s happening, the country will collapse,” he said.

“The regulations, if you ignore that and you let corruption and fraud become a daily business and then tough luck, the country will not exist as they [Americans] know it,” Jamal said.

“I’m afraid it’s already too big to stop, you know, maybe it’s too late. Maybe it’s already too big to stop,” he said. “There’s a lot of people invested in this, you know, and they don’t care how they did it: ‘We win,’ and that’s it.”

Ballot Harvester described how his own ballot was harvested by Omar operatives

Jamal, as part of his participation in the investigation, interviewed a Somali-American who functions as a ballot harvester his community. In the interview, the harvester described how he was paid to vote in the Aug. 11 special election and primary, along with a Project Veritas undercover journalist.

The harvester said Somali-American vote-buying operatives from the Omar machine came to his apartment building to oversee the voter filling out the paperwork.

Omar operatives request the ballots and fill them out for the voters, he said.

“They come to us. They came to our homes. They said: ‘This year, you will vote for Ilhan,’” he said. “They said: ‘We will make the absentee ballots. We will fill out the forms for you and when you get them back, we will again fill it out and send it.”

There was no need to go to the voting site, because the Omar operatives told him: “You stay home and you will not go to the place.”

After the ballots are signed and documented the harvester said he got paid.

“When we sign the voting document and they fill it out is when they give us the money,” he said. “The minute we signed the thing [ballot] for the election. That’s when we get paid.”

Ballot harvester describes how he targets elderly voters

Omar Jamal: So they [ballot harvesters] will request it [the ballot] for the elderly?
Ballot harvester: Yes. They [ballot harvesters] request [the ballot] for them [the elderly].
Omar Jamal: And it [the ballot] is taken away from them [elderly]?
Ballot Harvester: Yes. It [the ballot] is taken away from them [elderly].

DFL operative describes why he did not speak up about the election corruption

A political operative, known as Jamal, for Minnesota’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, which functions as the state’s official chapter of the national Democratic Party, told a Project Veritas undercover journalist he was afraid to speak up when he saw abuses of the voting system.

“They fight you if you speak up,” Jamal said. “Like what? Like what can I do? Like get jumped? Hell no. They ain’t got—no, no, I’m good.”

The DFL operative said he also saw Mohamed’s Snapchat videos. “I was looking at them and they were not filled. They were blank.”

*** 

“Liban didn’t get it in a unique way,” he said. “He just gets them the way that everybody before him, or even, maybe even after him will do, which is go to the elders, maybe bait them and collect and help to them and he’s helping them–so, I think that’s the process of collecting from the seniors, from their buildings.”

The Insider said another corrupting effect is the miseducation of the city’s new immigrants.

“We have to understand that the immigrants mostly, here now, are first generation immigrants,” he said.

“Through no fault of their own the new immigrants are learning about democracy from the ballot harvesters,” he said. “When they get here, because of that ignorance, not knowing how this, all things work. Sometimes they even think it’s legal.” – he said.

Documented ballot harvesting, vote buying violates federal and state law

Jered Ede, the chief legal officer for Project Veritas, said Mohamed and his confederates may have violated both state and federal election laws, some carrying a maximum penalty of five years imprisonment.

“The federal laws, 18 USC §597 and 52 U.S.C. §10307(c), are quite clear,” he said. “In the case of 18 USC §597, it is punishable by up to two years in prison and in the case of 52 USC §10307 it’s punishable by up to $10,000 in fines and up to five years in prison.”

The Minnesota statute, 211B.13(1) prohibits paying a person or receiving money to register to vote or to vote, he said. “This is a state felony punishable by more than one-year imprisonment.”

Beyond paying voters, there are also state and federal laws regarding intimidation of voters, he said.

“The federal laws 52 USC §20511, 18 USC §594 and 52 USC §10307(b) and the Minnesota statue 211B.07 law prohibit anyone from using undue influence threats intimidation or fraud to influence a person’s vote or to influence them to vote at all,” he said.

It’s also a violation of federal law for anyone who votes for others illegally:

“The punishment under 52 USC §10307(e) also goes up to five years’ incarceration and a $10,000 fine,” he said.

“In addition to those statutes, Minnesota has another statute, 211B.11(3), which makes it a misdemeanor to induce or persuade a voter to vote for or against a candidate, while transporting the voter to the polls,” he said.

Former campaign worker comes forward

One Minneapolis-based source, who is a former political worker, told Project Veritas journalists on the night of the Aug. 11 special election and primary that Omar’s campaign manager Ali Isse Gainey is a key player in the ballot harvesting scheme.

***

The source said, “[Gainey], who’s working in Ilhan’s campaign is the one who is managing the voting place. They bring them. They line them. They put the open ballots in there and then they take them in and say, ‘Here,’ and the people mark [the ballots].”

The practice is pervasive she said.

“They’re accepting temporary addresses; they’re accepting all kind of shenanigans,” she said.

“People that are showing their ID: ‘I moved 30 days ago, my ID’s not come back.’ ‘OK, just give us the last four of your social and tell us the address,’ and then somebody else will say ‘Yeah.’ They will send people who are helping them vote and saying: ‘Yeah, I can vouch for this madness,’” she said.

The former campaign worker said Isse and the Omar-connected political machine have turned voter fraud into an organized process for application, registering and tracking the harvested ballots from collection to delivering to polls.

“They have perfected this system,” she said. “This is what they do. They will tell you we are applying for your ballot. They take a picture of your social security and your driver’s license. They have a database. When the ballot comes, they track it, sometimes, they make fake emails. They track the ballot. Then, they come and pick up the ballot—unopened,” she said.

“So, there is vested interest, but we are victims of the system,” she said. “They [the Omar political machine] don’t give a shit about any Somali.”

***

Our source was disgusted by the exploitation of her vulnerable community.

“No, and the ones that didn’t vote on ballots, the young people, and the women and stuff, they were paying cash, cash, cash,” she said. “They were carrying bags of money. And when you vote and they mark you off, then you get in the van, they give you the cash.”

Obtain a Ballot Just by Taking a Photo of a Signature

Ah what? A signature photo using your smart phone? Whose signature? How many signatures?

How This Solo Founder Got Into a Top Tech Accelerator ...

Meet Debra Cleaver, Founder & CEO, of Vote.org. February of 2017. The Institute of Politics as Harvard hosted a panel discussion, titled “Leaders of the Resistance’. The Panelists included Debra Cleaver, Founder & CEO of Vote.org; Leah Greenberg, Co-Founder of Indivisible; Andrea Hailey, Founder of Civic Engagement Fund; Amanda Litman, Founder of Run for Something; and Jess Morales Rocketto, Digital Community Organizer for OccupyAirports joined moderator Meighan Stone, a Spring 2017 Entrepreneurship Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy and President of Malala Fund for a panel discussion on the women-led “Resistance” against the current White House. The panelists discussed recent events in voter and candidate outreach, especially on the local level, in achieving their efforts to advance Democratic causes in the upcoming 2018 and 2020 elections.

Meanwhile……

With November looming, the scramble to protect the 2020 U.S. election from coronavirus chaos is on.

To that end, a small, skilled cluster of voting rights advocates are launching a new voter mobilization project. Called VoteAmerica, the new non-profit shares DNA with Vote.org, the esteemed nonpartisan voter mobilization site VoteAmerica founder Debra Cleaver first launched in 2008.

VoteAmerica’s goal is to boost voter turnout by helping people vote by mail. In a normal year that might mean striving to drive record turnout. But in the midst of the pandemic, the team is working to ensure that 2020’s presidential election turnout doesn’t slump like it would in a midterm election year.

“It seems at this point that Americans are either going to be unable or unwilling to vote in person in the November election, which could lead to catastrophically low turnout,” Cleaver said in an interview with TechCrunch . “But if we have our way, there will be no perceivable dip in turnout in November.”

While Vote.org is still around, the organization severed ties with Cleaver last summer in a drawn out battle with the group’s board. As Recode reported last month, some key Vote.org partners and donors walked out the door with Cleaver—a major concern for an organization with valuable ties in Silicon Valley and a more dire mission than ever in 2020.

With VoteAmerica, they might be back in the picture. Some of Cleaver’s previous Silicon Valley backers include Y Combinator’s Sam Altman (Cleaver is a YC alum), LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman and angel investor Ron Conway. In a conversation with TechCrunch, Cleaver noted that at least Conway is back on board, pitching in with the $5 million in initial funding—a mix of grants and early contributions—to get the fledgling organization off the ground.

“We have the expertise, the team, the experience, and the plan,” Cleaver wrote in a Facebook post last month, adding that a “generous donor” had already stepped up to cover the nascent organization’s payroll costs.

Cleaver describes VoteAmerica as a lean team with deep experience—and one ready to hit the ground running. The project’s new website VoteAmerica.com fittingly displays an election day countdown clock in stark white-on-red lettering to convey the urgency of its task.

In the announcement for the new project, Cleaver said she believes that the 2020 elections “will be the most chaotic in American history”—a prediction that unfortunately is very difficult to argue with.

“Chaos driven by a global pandemic, foreign interference, threats of political violence, a radicalized electorate, a virulent campaign of disinformation, and fragile election administration technology all combine to make voting in person more difficult and less secure than ever before,” Cleaver said.

Because states conduct elections in the United States, her group’s core mission is to shepherd voters through the national patchwork of voting registration systems. On the simple site, visitors can register to vote, check their registration status, find a polling place, request an absentee ballot or sign up to vote-by-mail.

While many states in the U.S. already administer a large chunk of their voting through absentee vote-by-mail, It looks likely that the urgent public health threat posed by the coronavirus will mean that mass public gatherings in crowded polling places remain unwise. In light of that threat, states are looking to dramatically scale up those systems now to get them ready in time for November.

Old systems, new solutions

For VoteAmerica, navigating the quirks of American election systems can look like lending voters a fax machine.

“You can only sign up [for a mail-in ballot] online in 15 states, which is not actually a significant number, but there’s another 15 more where you can fax in your form, which doesn’t seem relevant because it’s 2020 and who uses a fax machine?”

But using fax APIs, VoteAmerica is building out a system that allows voters to request a vote-by-mail application just by taking a photo of their signature. VoteAmerica’s tool then uses code to put the signature in the right spot on the form and then programmatically faxes it to the relevant local election official.

“This is kind of wonky because we’re using truly antiquated technology to modernize the vote-by-mail process,” Cleaver said. “But if you have a mobile device—and 87% of Americans have a smartphone—we’re building technology that lets you sign up directly from your mobile device without printing and mailing.”

It’s just one way that VoteAmerica plans to employ technology solutions to civic problems—like the outdated government systems that still haunt American life. The solution sounds small, but at scale it can mobilize a huge amount of voters who otherwise could have been tangled up in the bureaucratic process. Naturally, that kind of elegant workaround to inefficient systems attracts interest from the tech community.

“We definitely do get a lot of tech money, and I think it’s because tech people both appreciate and trust using technology to clear antiquated hurdles,” Cleaver said.

“The things that we do, people in Silicon Valley are very receptive to it, whereas people outside the Valley might take a little more time to warm up to it.” More here.

‘I Was A Master At Fixing Mail-In Ballots’

First question here is challenging the word ‘was’……

The next question to consider is voting or not voting is free speech at least….notice how the Democrats are now forcing speech by manipulating the voting process and votes themselves?

But first, begin with this potential scandal. A Constitutional crisis is upon the nation.

The building crisis is real for those who care to see it.

A top Democratic data firm is warning that a huge increase in mail-in ballots in 2020 may have the election night effect of making President Trump appear to have a landslide lead, even though he may lose once all the mail-in votes are counted.

Hawkfish, a Democratic data firm funded by billionaire former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, expects far more Democrats to vote by mail than Republicans. That expectation is based on a July 1-Aug. 16 survey of 17,263 registered voters nationwide, which measured how people intend to vote and who they intend to vote for.

Because it could take days or weeks to tally the mail-in ballots, that could create the effect of making Trump look like he is in the lead on election night.

“We are sounding an alarm and saying that this is a very real possibility, that the data is going to show on election night an incredible victory for Donald Trump,” Hawkfish CEO Josh Mendelsohn told Axios, calling the effect a “red mirage.”

In one scenario, if only 15% of mail-in ballots are counted on election night, that could make Trump look on pace to get a 408-130 Electoral College vote lead. But by four days later, if 75% of mail-in ballots are counted, then Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden could show a lead.

“When every legitimate vote is tallied and we get to that final day, which will be some day after Election Day, it will in fact show that what happened on election night was exactly that, a mirage,” Mendelsohn said. “It looked like Donald Trump was in the lead, and he fundamentally was not when every ballot gets counted.”

The project is a warning to news outlets and voters on what to expect during election night. Part of that “mirage” scenario assumes that those who project election winners like the Associated Press will not make adjustments in how they portray results on election night due to the rise in mail-in votes — but many newsrooms are preparing for a different pace and method of election results reporting due to mail-in ballots, in order to prevent the scenario that Hawkfish describes.

Trump could further complicate matters. The president has said that he thinks that the results of the election should be announced on election night.

Election analysts have warned for months that due to the expected large increase in mail-in and absentee voting, it may take days or weeks to know the final results from the Nov. 3 election.

(Hawkfish is a US political data and technology-based agency headquartered in New York City founded by Michael Bloomberg.The firm was founded in the spring of 2019 to support, “Democratic candidates, good causes, and common sense solutions.”)

Hawkfish - Who We Are

***

One top Democratic operative took it upon himself to whistleblow on the fraudulent practices of voting, especially with mail-in ballots. Speaking on condition of anonymity because of his own criminal activities participating in voter fraud, the Democratic operative sought out New York Post reporter Jon Levine to explain it all.

Levine’s article published over the weekend was titled, “Confessions of voter fraud: I was a master at fixing mail-in ballots.” A “top Democratic operative says voter fraud, especially with mail-in ballots, is no myth. And he knows This because he’s been doing it, on a grand scale, for decades” writes Levine. The anonymous operative admitted, “this is a real thing…and there is going to be a f-king war coming November 3rd over this stuff” but admits “if they knew how the sausage was made, they could fix it.”

Operative trick #1: “the ballot has no specific security features – like a stamp or a watermark – so the insider said he would just make his own ballots. ‘I just put [the ballot] through the copy machine and it comes out the same way’ the insider said.” The man admitted, “his dirty work has taken him through the weeds of municipal and federal elections in Paterson, Atlantic City, Camden, Newark, Hoboken and Hudson County and his fingerprints can be found in local legislative, mayoral and congressional races across the Garden State.”

The Post confirmed the whistleblower’s identity, rap sheet and “long history working as a consultant to various campaigns.” The insider “says he not only changed ballots himself over the years, but led teams of fraudsters and mentored at least 20 operatives in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.” Unfortunately, “some of the biggest names and highest officeholders in New Jersey have benefited from his tricks, according to campaign records The Post reviewed.”

The whistleblower is a self-admitted Bernie Sanders “die-hard with no horse in the presidential race.” He simply said he “felt compelled to come forward in the hope that states would act now to fix the glaring security problems present in mail-in ballots.”

Additional unethical practices the insider engaged in, is “he would have his operatives fan out, going house to house, convincing voters to let them mail completed ballots on their behalf as a public service. The fraudster and his minions would then take the sealed envelopes home and hold them over boiling water. ‘You have to steam it to loosen the glue’ said the insider.” They would then replace the real ballot with a counterfeit ballot and reseal the envelope.

 

 

He and his operatives would be careful to sprinkle fake ballots in mailboxes around town. He even said sometimes postal employees are in on the scam. “You have a postman who is a rabid anti-Trump guy and he’s working in Bedminster or some Republican stronghold…He can take those [filled-out] ballots, and knowing 95% are going to a Republican, he can just throw those in the garbage.”

 

California’s $35M Mail-voting Campaign Tied to Biden

Say it isn’t so….and hat tip to Lara, the investigative journalist for this stellar work.

You may remember Anita Dunn, the former Obama White House that praised Mao Zedong. Well, she too is a campaign advisor to Joe Biden…she is in the thick of it all.

Petition Pushes Obama Campaign Strategist To Drop Keystone ... source

California to spend $35 million on mail voting campaign run by firm with ‘Team Biden’ ties

A public affairs and consulting firm known for working with Democrats has been awarded a $35 million contract for a new California campaign to encouraging voting during the pandemic.

SKD Knickerbocker, which has crafted successful campaigns for many Democrats and has championed issues like same-sex marriage and police reform, was awarded the contract on Aug. 13 after an expedited approval process, said Paula Valle, chief communications officer for California Secretary of State Alex Padilla’s office.

The firm is run by CEO Josh Isay, who ran Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer’s 1998 campaign. Other notable employees include former Obama communications official Anita Dunn and Hillary Rosen, a longtime media figure who also worked with California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein. On its site, the firm lists itself as supportive of Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, saying it is “proud to be a part of Team Biden.”

Heather Wilson, the managing director and head of the firm’s California office, said its clients range from politicians to corporations to public interest groups and nonprofits.

“As a public affairs firm, a great deal of our work (including this Vote Safe campaign) is nonpartisan,” Wilson said in an email.

Valle said those working on the campaign, both on the firm side and the government side, are nonpartisan and do not have ties to specific politicians.

The state is preparing for a tumultuous election season in light of the coronavirus.

In May, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an executive order to send every registered California voter a mail-in ballot ahead of the Nov. 3 general election. Newsom issued another order in June changing the format of in-person voting in some counties to allow for social distancing. Padilla’s office, which oversees elections, is now launching a campaign to inform voters of the changes and challenges of the November election.

The $35 million for the campaign, dubbed “Vote Safe California,” was part of more than $111 million allocated in the state’s annual budget to the Secretary of State’s office with the goal to “prevent, prepare for, and respond to the impacts of COVID-19 on the election and provide associated voter education and outreach.”

According to documents obtained by the Sacramento Bee, The contract asks the firm to develop strategic messaging across several media platforms, with special attention given to reaching first-time mail voters and those with language and disability barriers.

The process of awarding the contract did not follow a traditional schedule, Valle said. Normally, a bid process in California can take three to six months, but because of how close the election is and the urgency of the message, the process was expedited, she said.

The original request for proposals went out on July 17, and seven firms submitted plans. A group of six people in the Secretary of State’s office narrowed the field to three finalists: SKD Knickerbocker, Grace Public Affairs, and Mercury Public Affairs.

There was no lowest bidder for this contract, Valle said. Because the Legislature had already directed the office to spend $35 million on a voter outreach campaign, state officials instead focused on how each firm proposed spending the money. The administrative fee charged by each finalist was about the same, she added.

Jessica Millan Patterson, chair of the California Republican Party, said in a statement that California’s election chief should know better than allowing “Team Biden” to run California’s absentee and get out the vote efforts.

“This $35 million expedited state contract screams conflict of interest, and the abuse of power calls into question his integrity,” she said. “Under this Democrat regime, our elections are simply being run by nothing more than a bunch of politics hacks.”

Peris > Portfolio > SKDKnickerbocker Mark Penn’s Stagwell Group Will Acquire SKDKnickerbocker ... source

*** Top recipients of SKG Knickerbocker are found here where Candidate Biden is at the top. Additional reading here.