(Daily Caller) A group presenting itself as a “nonpartisan” voter registration organization worked to help Democrats win elections in 2020, according to a new report by conservative watchdog group Capital Research Center (CRC) exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation.
The organization, called Voter Registration Project (VRP), was “commissioned” by now-White House Deputy Chief of Staff John Podesta, funded by top left-wing donors and specifically aimed at winning election victories for Democrats, CRC alleges in the report. Although VRP describes itself as “nonpartisan,” it particularly targeted demographics likely to vote for Democrats and hired left-wing consultants, leading to 5.1 million new voter registrations since 2015, according to its website.
“Encouraging qualified voters to exercise their right to vote is a noble purpose, served by legitimate nonpartisan, nonprofit organizations, and community leaders around the country,” Lawyers Democracy Fund Executive Director Lisa Dixon, who was not involved in CRC’s report, told the DCNF. “But when supposedly nonpartisan organizations conduct get-out-the-vote efforts in a manner that seems designed to benefit one political party, voters are rightly skeptical of how fair and nonpartisan such efforts are.”
CRC highlights left-wing Political Action Committee (PAC) Mind the Gap’s (MTG) promotion of “Everybody Votes” — a covert name for Voter Registration Project — in a memo obtained by Vox. MTG is a California-based Super PAC formerly led by disgraced alleged fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried’s mother, Barbara Fried, who helped write the memo advising the optimal strategy for allocating funds to support Democratic victories.
“The most effective tactic in a Presidential year by a wide margin is nonpartisan voter registration focused on underrepresented groups in our electoral process,” the memo states.
Contributing to charitable organizations is significantly more cost-effective “at netting additional Democratic votes,” the memo adds. The document also underscores a strategy of maintaining secrecy for partisan reasons, suggesting that if Republicans became aware of these efforts, they might target both MTG and the recipient organizations.
Although MTG’s memo only mentions Everybody Votes, foundations gave grants related to MTG to Voter Registration Project, appearing to indicate the organizations are one and the same, according to public documents and CRC’s report.
The David E. Reese Family Foundation contributed $20,000 to VRP for MTG’s “voter registration” initiative, according to a grant in 2019. Similarly, the San Francisco Foundation gave $190,000 to Voter Registration Project Education Fund for MTG’s efforts to support Everybody Votes, according to a grant.
Everybody Votes registered 5.1 million voters, 76% of whom were “people of color,” since its inception in 2015, according to its website. Further, 56% were women, and 46% were under 35 years old.
“VRP provided Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden between 1 million and 2.7 million votes,” CRC estimates.
“Oftentimes you see these organizations speak almost in code, and the code is specifically designed to make it seem as though they are targeting underrepresented minority groups or others,” Honest Elections Project Executive Director Jason Snead, who was not involved in CRC’s report, told the DCNF. “But when you put it all together, you can see the picture that they are painting is an effort to target primarily voters that are going to be voting for Democratic politicians and candidates … And so that’s how supposedly nonpartisan nonprofit groups will then turn around and act in very partisan ways.”
There is strong support for the notion that Everybody Votes’ blueprint is rooted in a plan by Corridor Partners, a progressive consulting firm, according to the report. Corridor Partners devised and emailed a plan in February 2015 that another foundation subsequently forwarded to then-Clinton campaign chairman Podesta, who later “commissioned” VRP.
Notably, the email’s subject line bore “VR” while the body mentioned “New c3 version,” indicating it was an updated charitable iteration of a prior voter registration plan.
“Even though the verbiage in the ‘new c3 version’ of the plan tried to camouflage its partisan goal of election victories for Democrats, the meat of the report—its voter data and funding recommendations—remained the same, and these elements became the Everybody Votes campaign,” CRC’s report asserts.
Corridor Partners’ plan is dated Feb. 27, 2015. Months later, VRP’s plan is dated Nov. 13, 2015, according to CRC’s report.
Everybody Votes’ (VRP) plan ultimately appeared strikingly similar to Corridor Partners’, even focusing on numerous overlapping swing states, according to CRC’s report. Both targeted a total of eight states, with six of them being the same — Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina and Nevada.
The plan’s budgets differed by just $1 million, with figures of $105 million and $106 million respectively, according to the report. Additionally, their anticipated new vote projections were 2.4 million and 2.2 million.
Moreover, there is evidence that left-wing groups collaborated to share the Everybody Votes voter registration plan with Podesta in emails uncovered by CRC.
The email to EMILY’s List contained a blueprint for Everybody Votes, which the group subsequently forwarded to Podesta, according to CRC’s report. “Is this the registration program you were hoping for? Can I push it?” the president of EMILY’s List asked Podesta in a November 2015 email.
Hungarian-born US investor and philanthropist George Soros smiles after delivering a speech on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting in Davos on May 24, 2022. (Photo by FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images)
Further, VRP received millions in funding from prominent left-wing donors, including over $10 million in grants from left-wing billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Foundations and a $500,000 grant from left-wing billionaire Pierre Omidyar’s Democracy Fund, according to their databases.
