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‘Thousands of Little Brush Fires All Over the State’: The PA GOP’s Plan to Subvert Future Elections

Leaked recordings reveal plans to deploy an “army of citizens” coordinating with the Republican Party’s “war room” in November, and during future elections.
Image via Shutterstock.

“The vision I have for everyone is thousands of little brush fires all over the state,” said Carol Davis of FreedomWorks during an “Election Integrity” summit outside of Harrisburg. “They can’t put them all out, folks.”

No, we can’t. Which is why this is so dangerous. 

Davis’s declaration of war against democracy in March, caught on tape by Washington, D.C.-based watchdog group Documented, offers a stark warning for anyone concerned with having a free and fair elections not only this Novemeber, but ever again. And it’s not just in Pennsylvania.

This is part on a larger, coordinated, cookie cutter effort by the Conservative Partnership Institute (CPI) to do the same thing in Georgia, Arizona, Florida, Virginia, Michigan, North Carolina, and Wisconsin – creating an “Election Integrity Network.” Cleta Mitchell, an attorney who assisted President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election, has been leading “Election Integrity” summits in these states.

Mitchell was on Trump’s flagrant phone call directing a Georgia elections official to “find” him 11,700 votes after losing the state. She is also currently under subpoena in a criminal investigation by Georgia’s Fulton County district attorney. 

During the infamous call, Mitchell made multiple false allegations of voter fraud. After the release of the call’s audio, Michell was forced to resign from her position as a partner at the Milwaukee-based law firm Foley and Lardner. The US House Select Committee on the Jan. 6th Attack has also subpoenaed Mitchell.

Since resigning, she immediately landed on her feet, working as a senior legal fellow CPI. Former Trump White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows is also a partner at CPI. 

“This fight is not just about what happened in 2020. This fight is about every future election, whether it is at a state level or a federal level or the highest office in the land,” said Meadows of the project.

Among CPI’s major financial backers are Trump’s Save America PAC and the Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation, where Mitchell currently serves as a board member and treasurer.

Andrea Raffle, the Republican National Committee’s Pennsylvania director of “Election Integrity,” outlined ways at the PA event to connect both volunteer and paid election workers with the Republican party’s “war room” in order to coordinate how to identify “problems” and “potential legal challenges.” CPI also wants to research if local election clerks and officials are “friends or foes” of the movement it is building. As Documented noted, CPI-led coalitions emphasize the importance of recruiting “poll workers and watchers—with an emphasis on poll workers, because they have more authority.” And many of those being recruited for this “army of citizens,” as Mitchell has put it, are “election conspiracists.”

“The goal of what we’re trying to do at this meeting today is to build a permanent election integrity infrastructure here in the state of Pennsylvania, and that infrastructure includes a statewide coalition,” said Tea Party Patriots’ Jenny Beth Martin at the Pennsylvania summit.

Our elections and democracy are under attack and the Democratic Party better have plans in place to put out these “thousands of little brush fires.” Doing nothing is not an option. 

For more information read: 

RNC links up with ‘Stop the Steal’ advocates to train poll workers

What leaked audio tells us about Trump-linked “election integrity” efforts

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Martin Churchill

Martin Churchill

Concerned resident from Bucks County, PA

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