Prominent leftist officials and dark money influencers dismissed election integrity concerns in a PBS documentary released Tuesday. They dismissed allegations of election influence in 2020 and preemptive integrity measures ahead of 2024.
“It was the most transparent and verified presidential election, and 2024 is likely to be even better,” said David Becker, director of “Zuckbucks” group Center for Election Innovation & Research, in “Counting The Vote: A Firing Line Special With Margaret Hoover.”
Hoover interviewed partisan officials and influencers about the outcome of 2020 and preparations for 2024. They dismissed election integrity concerns and blamed them for “conspiracy theories” and “threats.” The documentary covered a number of states, including Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, North Carolina, and Wisconsin.
While Hoover spoke to some Republicans and election integrity advocates, they were far outweighed by leftist officials and activists intent on debunking legitimate election concerns.
David Becker, Center for Election Innovation & Research
Hoover asked Becker his thoughts on 2020 mail-in voting concerns.
“We had more mail voters voting in 2020 than ever before. Rational campaigns would have recognized that and actually encouraged their own voters to choose the options that they most feel comfortable with,” Becker said. “The Trump campaign did not do that, instead spreading lies about mail voting.”
Becker’s group CEIR funneled close to $70 million in “Zuckbucks” from Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to influence election administration and promote Democrat-backed voting practices like mail-in voting ahead of the 2020 election. Becker’s former boss at the Justice Department described him as a “hard-core leftist” who “couldn’t stand conservatives.”
Becker is also the founder of the Electronic Registration Information Center (ERIC), a multi-state online voter roll “maintenance” platform where states submit election data, supposedly to remove dead and duplicate voters. But ERIC shares the data with CEIR so the groups can target voter registration efforts.
Jocelyn Benson, Michigan Secretary of State
Hoover also spoke to Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat who is working with Becker ahead of November and who recently urged citizens to report election “misinformation” to the government.
Benson portrayed herself as a victim, recalling protests as officials barred observers from polling places on election night 2020.
“I still hear the noise in my head of the yelling, the banging, and feel that fear that we felt that night,” Benson said. “The 2020 election cycle was a perfect storm of a number of things, from the global pandemic, to a sitting president who was determined to sow seeds of doubt about the integrity of our elections long before November had hit us, and also we had a series of new election laws, including the ability for citizens to vote from home.”
Benson sent absentee ballot applications to every registered Michigan voter in 2020. But mail-in voting is susceptible to postal delays, complications, or theft, as The Federalist previously reported. For example, earlier this year in Utah, hundreds of ballots mailed on time were not processed by the Postal Service in time to be counted in the primary election.
Benson threatened local boards of canvassers with legal action if they do not immediately certify election results, citing Proposal 2 of 2022 which made certification “ministerial, clerical, and nondiscretionary.”
“It’s a legal duty to certify the election results, and if there is not a certification, we’ll go to court and compel that certification,” Benson said.
Wendy Weiser, Brennan Center for Justice
Wendy Weiser, vice president for democracy at leftist lawfare group Brennan Center for Justice, also discussed the 2020 election with Hoover. According to InfluenceWatch, Weiser works to advance left-wing laws regarding election administration, voting, campaign finance, and redistricting.
“The Department of Homeland Security under President Trump declared 2020 the most secure election in American history,” Weiser proclaimed.
Meanwhile, the screen flashed a press release from the DHS’s CISA program — the federal government’s online censorship apparatus.
In the release, CISA claimed there was “no evidence” the 2020 election was “in any way compromised.” But the House Judiciary Committee found that CISA colluded with Big Tech, private groups, and federal agencies to censor speech online ahead of the 2020 election.
“More than a third of Americans, and more than two-thirds of Republicans, still believe Biden was elected because of voter fraud. That’s not true, according to the official assessment of former President Trump’s own administration,” Hoover said, referencing the release.
The release was a joint statement from two groups: the Election Infrastructure Government Coordinating Council and the Election Infrastructure Sector Coordinating Council. As The Federalist previously reported, CISA is working with these groups to target so-called election “misinformation.”
The ‘Petri Dish’ of ‘Election Denial’
When Hoover spoke with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, a Republican, he emphasized the need to concede elections instead of questioning the outcome.
“When people lose their race, I think they just really need to accept the loss and then come back four years later if they want to run again,” Raffensperger said.
Hoover spoke with Jeb Bush about his brother George W. Bush’s contested 2000 presidential election results against Al Gore. Jeb Bush made a similar point to Raffensperger, applauding Gore for conceding the election.
“Rather than say, ‘What a horrible decision, the Supreme Court is politicized, this is ugly,’ or whatever, Al Gore did an incredible thing — he conceded,” Bush said. “He said we need to unite behind our new president.”
Benjamin Ginsberg, George W. Bush’s lawyer during the 2000 recount, started moving away from the GOP in 2016, according to InfluenceWatch. He called prolonged election results the “petri dish of the germ of election denial,” but blamed Trump for causing doubts about election integrity.
“No presidential candidate, let alone a president of the United States, has ever said pre- and post-election that the system is inaccurate. That’s going to drive up Republican doubts about the election,” Ginsberg said. “It is now at a truly harmful level for the health of the country.”
Hoover repeated the left’s “red mirage” claim, saying Republicans mostly vote in person but Democrats mostly vote by mail, so officials count mail-in ballots and tilt the election leftward after election day — dismissing appearances of wrongdoing.
As The Federalist previously reported, results were typically all processed in one night before the 2020 election, so efforts to prolong the process can pose integrity risks. Ahead of Michigan’s primaries, Benson warned that “we may not have, as others have emphasized, the results of every election immediately upon the polls closing.”
‘Conspiracy Theories’
Hoover interviewed Claire Woodall, former election director of the Milwaukee Election Commission, who worked with the “Zuckbucks” group Center for Tech & Civic Life ahead of the 2020 election. CTCL funneled $328 million from Zuckerberg to election agencies ahead of 2020, and its meddling was prominent in Milwaukee.
CTCL promised Woodall an “experienced elections staffer” to “embed” with city elections staff, as The Federalist previously reported. Soon after, Michael Spitzer-Rubenstein — a Democrat activist working with the National Vote at Home Institute — met Woodall. He offered to “cure” absentee ballot envelopes, and emails show he obtained keys to the room where Green Bay’s absentee ballots were stored.
When speaking to Hoover, Woodall said 2020 election integrity concerns were just “conspiracy theories.”
Logan Washburn is a staff writer covering election integrity. He graduated from Hillsdale College, served as Christopher Rufo’s editorial assistant, and has bylines in The Wall Street Journal, The Tennessean, and The Daily Caller. Logan is originally from Central Oregon but now lives in rural Michigan.
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